Royal Mail - modernised or traumatised?
In 2001 the government installed a senior management team into the Royal Mail with a remit to modernise and repair the poor relations between management and unions. Instead of modernising they have succeeded in traumatising the entire organisation and creating a degree of alienation between managers and employees that we haven’t seen since the miners strikes of the 80’s.
The Guardian 8 Oct 09 reports: “Our story today on Royal Mail losing a vital contract with Amazon arrives with a great thud and terrible timing. There is a direct link between Royal Mail losing its second-largest customer, and another event due today – the likely announcement by the Communication Workers’ Union of a national strike. That would follow months of regional stoppages which have left Himalayan backlogs in deliveries and a deepening sense that the postal service is undependable.” Full article.
You can read the Royal Mail plans for modernisation.
Are we really living in the 21st Century? How could a management team today come up with a modernisation plan that is so archaic? The obvious omission from the modernisation list is management of people. Employee engagement is a topical theme. It’s in the headlines every day. How could you not tune into it?
There are skills you can learn to engage, motivate, connect and harness the energy in a workforce. Modernisation is much more than a clever share scheme, a few extra vans and a cost-cutting plan. You need a modern relationship between managers and non-managers. You need a relationship between managers and you need a relationship between teams. Modern management is all about relationships and engaging hearts and minds.
I recently spoke to someone from the post office who told me how managers treat employees like children. One of the many examples he gave was having to raise his hand to seek a supervisor’s permission before going to the toilet. If you treat grown-ups like children they will behave like children. You get what you enforce.
A reliable postal service is important. It is a vital part of our infrastructure in so many ways. We rely on an effective postal service for so many things. It’s an important job and needs dedicated, engaged people to run it. If you undervalue employees you undervalue the service.
The current management team have traumatised our postal service probably through their lack of people management skills, naivety and lack of awareness. It will take a very different team to pull the service back. I doubt this team now have the time to develop the skills and attitude necessary to bring our postal service back from trauma and into the 21st century. Engagement requires people skills which you have to invest in. You can get them here.
David Molden
