(RMG/CWU Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Agreement – Appendix 1)
This Joint Communication has been agreed to confirm ongoing arrangements on Seasonal Variation as set out in the RMG/CWU Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Agreement, Appendix 1, this joint communication sits alongside the relaunch of section 2.5 Joint Statement Working together to Improve Quality of Service (Annex B).
Since the introduction of Seasonal Variation, Royal Mail and the CWU have identified an opportunity to adjust the agreed design to meet an evolving set of business and employee objectives. After commencing the scheme in the High Season 2023 (from 4th September to 17th December 2023) there is now an immediate opportunity to take advantage of lower forecast workload in the lead up to March 2024.
Royal Mail and CWU have agreed the following:
- That between weeks 44 – 48 (22nd January 2024 until 25th February 2024 – 5 weeks) full time employees will typically reduce their attendance to 35 hours per week. This will mean Delivery employees will start 14 minutes later and finish 10 minutes earlier during this period. For part time employees their attendances will reduce by 10 minutes. The decision to introduce this reduction is an attempt to better align work hours to traffic during the period, and to give some hours back to employees prior to the end of the financial year
- During the Summer 2024 period during weeks 9 – 23 (27th May 2024 until 8th September 2024) full time employees will typically work at 35 hours, in line with the agreement, for 15 weeks. This will mean that full time employees will start 14 minutes later and finish 10 minutes earlier, and part time employees will work 10 minutes less per day
- It is also agreed that the peak period for 2024, where full time employees will typically increase their hours to 39 hours, will be reduced to a period of 5 weeks. Both parties will jointly agree the dates for the 5 week period by 31st January 2024
- The signatories to this joint communication recognise the initial 15 week period for high and low season can be reduced to a reduced number of weeks and will finalise this reduction for seasonal variation to be applied in 2025/2026 by no later than 31st March 2024, considering lessons learnt from the initial stages of Seasonal Variation implementation.
- In line with Appendix 1, Seasonal Variation, Section 1.2.4 of the National Agreement, the impact of the flex time being applied to the start of the duty in the 2024 High Season will be assessed. Specifically, it will be reviewed to assess if it creates issues such as instances of running out of work between wave 1 and wave 2 arrivals, impacting indoor productivity. This review will also take into account that the Network Window impact would have been deployed and associated changes to move start times.
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This adjustment to the Seasonal Variation design means that by the end of the 2024/25 Annual leave year, employee’s planned working hours after the effect of Seasonal Variation will have been balanced up.
As part of this approach, both parties have reviewed the associated impact on annual leave arrangements for 2023/24. This has been a difficult and complex matter, and both parties have acknowledged that talks have been prolonged accordingly. However, we have now reached a joint position and can confirm the following:
- It has been agreed that given Seasonal Variation will have no impact on annual leave deductions in the financial year 2023/24. Annual Leave will effectively be deducted at the Mid Season rate
- This means that, firstly, because Seasonal Variation commenced in the ‘high-period’ of its cycle, there is a need to address the misalignment of hours in the PSP system during the 2023 High Season period (from 4th September to 17th December 2023)
- Accordingly, Royal Mail (Human Resource Services) will run an exercise in the New Year of 2024 to make adjustments to the PSP system to issue back the extra hours worked for all employees whose attendance patterns were varied under Seasonal Variation, which will address the higher daily deduction of hours used for annual leave in the high-period
- Employees should see the realignment in hours to their personal leave entitlement before the end of the Annual leave year (24th March)
- In the meantime, employees will be able to continue to book future leave as normal because the negative leave balance tolerance has been temporarily increased to cater for this scenario
- In the new Mini Low Period, annual leave will also be deducted at the Mid Season rate. No exercise will be necessary by HR Services to ‘true-up’ employee annual leave balances because PSP is already configured accurately in this regard
- From the start of the leave year 2024/2025 (April 2024), annual leave taken during the Seasonal Variation periods will be deducted in line with the low and high periods. This will mean that a reduced level of leave will be used during the low-period (Summer) but a higher daily deduction of hours in the high-period (Autumn), in line with the differing scheduled hours of attendance through the seasons
Both parties have agreed to jointly launch the contents of the above Joint Communication with the RM Regional Operations Directors and CWU Divisional Reps on Monday 15th January 2024
Where there are local level issues or questions in terms of the application of the above these should be raised as a matter of priority by the relevant COMs and local CWU Reps to OPL/ADR level for resolution. Any errors in terms of the realignment of employees’ hours will be corrected, and Royal Mail commits to do so at pace without undue delay
Any issues or enquiries regarding this Joint Communication should be raised with the appropriate national signatories from both Royal Mail and the CWU.
Martin Walsh
Deputy General Secretary Postal
CWU
Mark Baulch
Assistant Secretary
CWU
Alistair Cochrane
Chief Operations Officer
Royal Mail
Ricky McAulay
Customer & Quality Director
Royal Mail