Team work counts at Rutherglen delivery office

Dec 19 2012 by Kenny Smith, Rutherglen Reformer

The Rutherglen delivery office is the end point of a Royal Mail pipeline.

When a letter or parcel is posted, it is taken to the Glasgow mail centre, where it is processed and sorted into which area of the country it needs to be taken to.

From there, it is taken to local mail centres, then delivery offices, from where the postmen and women will take it for delivery to customers.

The Rutherglen centre is constantly being brought mail for delivery throughout both night and day, especially at present in the build-up to the Christmas mail rush.

Manager Alan Drysdale said: “When it comes here, our postmen and women will sort it out for their runs, and they go out in twos now.

“One of the things driving this was the health and safety of our staff, who were previously walking about with big bags, weighing up to 16kg each, and carrying them around for two or three hours, or even up to four hours.

“We invested in vehicles for two postmen and women, as well as delivery trollies, and now they work in small loops.

“It’s like a picture of a flower - they go out, do a small loop, like a petal, and then come back again to their van, and do another, and another, until they’ve finished.

“It’s all part of the big change as we go through the period where we’re seeing a decline in letters but a massive growth in parcels, so to have staff deliver fewer letters and more parcels.

“They can’t go out with a bag like they used to any more.

“Plus, traditionally, a postman’s job was one where you have to be able to work on your own and be self-motivated, but now they are working in a partnership, so they have someone to share their break with, and form a bond, which is good for the team.”

And Alan said customers can help their deliveries arrive quicker by using the correct post code.

He explained: “It’s key that every customers uses the post code where they can - a camera looks at mail and can use OCR (optical character recognition) to read the address.

“If something is correct we can get it within 50 houses of where it should be going.

“Sometimes, this is where the local knowledge comes in, as the regular postman will be able to know which house it’s intended for as they will know the name.

“ A lot of big businesses are very dependent on this kind of local knowledge.

“The Royal Mail is still able to give that personal touch for our customers, as unlike a lot of other companies, we do know our customers by name.

“That’s something that’s built up from years and years of experience.”

During its visit, the Reformer met its old postwoman, Sandy Gillespie, who not only remembered which house this reporter lived in, more than 10 years ago, but also knew his dog by its name - Saffron!

Sandy said: “Knowing things like that is useful, especially at Christmas.

“I got one card addressed to ‘Rosie the golden labrador’.

“ It was for a house in Mansefield Avenue - but she was a retriever, which I knew, so I found it.”

Christmas sees a major rise in the workload for the local postal staff.

Alan said: “We have had some extremely busy days. For example, on Monday, December 3, £1.3 billion was spent in Scotland online, and on average about 70-77 per cent of all people are going with the Royal Mail to deliver the packages to customers.

“There has been such a change in packet growth and parcel growth, and we need to react to that. For us, the key is getting it delivered to the customer. We want to hit our quality targets, which is vital for a business.

“It used to be that we were government run for the public, but now if the customers are spending money on the Royal Mail, they expect a standard of service, which we aim to meet.”