Moya Greene addresses Canada Post employees
January 29, 2009
Part 1
Part 2
Questions and Answers
Updated: March 13, 2009
Question
Moya,
I'm an LAS in the St Mary's (Ont) area and I have approximately 28-30 rural routes, and I have worked in C-D offices with RSMC's. Could we not amalgamate the routes that are under 4 hours. Update the cases from A-43 to A-32's, the case strips (alphabetical rather than line of travel), headers and maps so that the delivery of these routes in a reasonable amount of time is possible? Why don't we start looking at revenue offices that make under $5000.00 / year and install cmbs in these areas? Why are the T-Sat teams so behind schedule? Does anyone really know the impact of the new 50 km RSMC vacancy policy for RSMC's. These are going to be seasoned employees who will be moving from route to route, and if the route is not updated with clear sorting and pulling, delivery instructions - these Ee's will be putting in for overtime. I am currently trying to update all of my routes prior to this happening in my area. The ripple affect from the possible vacancies could affect many offices in the same zone and offices in other zones. When will we start to install cmb's on the inside of the golden circle? I think the current economic crisis will allow us to proceed with cost cutting proposals that we could not entertain if the economy was thriving. The public will be more understanding now that anytime in the last 40 years. We did 7 billion in revenue last year, with a meager profit. I think this company could do much better if we were all on the same page. We need to be very pro-active at this time period to ensure the viability of our company.
Response
Thank you for your suggestions on how we could be more efficient in serving our rural customers. I really appreciate your feedback.
There are several points you raise, including your suggestion to implement CMB service on the inside of the golden circle and as a replacement for revenue offices that make under $5,000 a year. Although CMBs are efficient, not all customers prefer to receive their mail this way.
As to the Rural Mail Safety Review, our pace in conducting the Traffic Safety Assessment Tool (TSAT) assessments is slightly slower than planned due to winter weather. We are about a quarter of the way through the entire review. In the latest round of negotiations, Canada Post agreed to review all rural routes prior to December 31, 2011, with the objective of reaching a normal average work week of 40 hours calculated over a four-week period. The parties also agreed to allow qualified RSMCs to submit applications for vacant positions in other postal installations, provided they are currently employed within 50 km of the installation. If they are deemed qualified and move, they must remain in that postal installation for two years, thus reducing some of the employee movement you mention.
I also noted your concerns about overtime requests. The normal RSMC work week is based on an average of 40 hours calculated over a four-week period. If employees work beyond these hours, there are options in the collective agreement that should be explored other than the authorization of an overtime payment. These include sending the route to the Transition Committee for review as well as the use of a helper as an interim measure. Where it’s necessary, route realignment will give us an opportunity to update cases and routes. The staffing process will then be easier. We will begin reviewing routes on a priority basis in April 2009 and will notify you if any of your routes are scheduled.
For more specific information about the routes in your area, you can contact Graham Kueneman, Manager of Delivery Services Planning, at 519 646-5192. Thank you for taking the time to write to me and for the thoughtful and constructive tone of your proposals. I value such feedback.
Question
Will the 2009 cost reduction plan apply to off- site meetings and conferences, business lunches/dinners and catered lunches to on-site meetings? There is a lot of money that this corporation could save with the appropriate changes in these areas including more on-site meetings, web-meetings, conference calls and lunch breaks for personal time including the purchasing of each participants lunches/dinners at no cost to the corporation.
Answer
You are absolutely right. Every dollar is going to count for 2009. We all need to be as efficient as possible with resources and avoid unnecessary costs without sacrificing customer service. That means thinking twice about how we do things. We ask our team leaders to use their best judgment and to reduce discretionary expenses as much as possible. Choosing less costly ways to hold meetings is one way. In some circumstances, off-site meetings are required due to lack of available space within our facilities. But, whenever possible we’re encouraging our people to use audio and web-conferencing services available through Bell Canada, our new service provider for both. Employees can find more information on these services on the IT Online website at “Audio & Web Conferencing”.
Question
The sorting plants not only have old equipment but old processes and aging employees. Mail must be carried over huge distances for processing in the same building. Our employees, many having physical limitations cannot keep pace. Mail is worked directly from monotainers, while our conveyor system and sorting machines frequently break down. CPC has a long history of the band aid approach to maintaining and replacing equipment. If CPC isserious about safety they need to think of immediate ways to reduce physical mail handling and mail travel distance.
Answer
I agree—our plants and the equipment we have there and in the depots are badly out of date. We make every effort to maintain our equipment in good and safe working order, but it has reached its technological limit.
To give you just one example, we have two different types of molded containers that were designed separately. They lack handles, so they’re hard to move. Improperly loaded, their weight can exceed recommended limits. What we’re doing is adding handles to our lettertainers; there are now some 450,000 in circulation. We’ve recently signed a contract with a supplier to produce new modular stackable containers with proper handles. We have also short-listed suppliers for compatible rolling carts. These will be both safe and efficient. This equipment will be introduced in the new Winnipeg plant, which is projected to be operational in mid-2010. Following Winnipeg’s introduction of new mail-processing equipment, systems and delivery, other plants will be modernized.
In the meantime, there is still work being done to improve the internal processing of mail in the plants. We are always looking for ways to improve, and suggestions from employees who work in these areas are very valuable. One example is the movement of manual sortation cases closer to sortation machinery to allow the rejects to be sorted without having to transport them great distances.
As you mention, we also have to consider an aging workforce. Through our association with Medisys and now Manulife, we devote a great deal of time and effort to address this issue —health and safety is a key priority for us.
Question
Can we really afford to go ahead with Postal Transformation?
Answer
We can’t afford not to go ahead with Postal Transformation. Our plants and our equipment are out of date. We have to invest in modernization if we are to survive through this crisis, and if we are to thrive in the future. So we will go ahead with Postal Transformation. We are looking at our timelines to ensure we proceed in the most efficient way possible.
Question
One of the themes that many governments have chosen to guide their countries out of the current economic downturn is to invest in infrastructure upgrades. Has the government of Canada asked Canada Post to assist in stimulating our economy with infrastructure projects? We have so many old, decrepit and unsuitable buildings that could be replaced or see significant upgrades. Wouldn't Canada Post be helping our economy by spending on those types of replacement projects?
Answer
Yes, we have talked to the government about this. We told them that their interest in infrastructure projects and economic stimulus fits with our need to invest in older buildings across the country. We are always looking for opportunities to benefit from the fact that we have common interests.
Question
Will employee engagement recognition be stopped to save costs?
Answer
No, we will not stop recognizing our employees. To meet the huge challenges that are before us, we will need the effort of every single person in our company. We showed we have what it takes in 2008. We all pulled together and by the end of the year, we were once again in the black. Our Operations people in particular came through for us, with more work done in less time.
Recognizing people’s hard work is more important than ever in tough times. It helps to improve morale and encourage teams and individuals to go that extra mile.
But recognition doesn’t have to be costly. Expenses can and should be modest—ordering donuts for a group can show appreciation for a job well done. A sincere “thank you” can go far.
Question Period
Here’s a transcript of the questions that were asked by employees following this presentation, and of the answers provided by Moya Greene.
Question 1
I’m fully aware of the economic reality and the difficult decisions that must be made. My question is more of a personal nature. I will be retiring at the end of this year. If I look ahead in the future – because I don’t intend to die in 2010 – in 2030, will our pension plan… can I rely on our pension plan? Will it be solid enough to support me until then?
Answer
In 2030! (laughter) Well, I have difficulties knowing what’s going to happen in 2009. But the answer is yes, because our pension plan is well financed over a long term period. I wouldn’t say that there won’t be any changes in two decades. It could happen, of course. But as far as I can see right now, the pension plan is reliable, sure and secure, no problem.
Question 2
Thanks very much for your commitment to be frank and open and talk about the difficulties the company is facing. My question is about the downsizing of our workforce. I guess you said the company will get smaller and smaller, and I know that poses the immediate question here at head office… are we talking about layoffs? Are we going to be proceeding with attrition as planned, in the sense that we have a lot people who are retiring very quickly, or are we thinking of things… I know that Bell Canada recently announced to its unionized employees that there would be some sort of incentives for people to retire sooner. I know there are creative ways to deal with the kind of issues we are grappling with. Can you be more specific?
Answer
I’m going to try to be as specific as I can, Barbara. As far as I can see things right now, we’re certainly going to try to capitalize on the attrition that we expect. We’re going to have approximately 29,000 people retiring at Canada Post over the next six years. We’re going to try to organize the work…we won’t be able person by person clearly, but we’re going to try to organize ourselves so that we can carry the mission we have at Canada Post without hiring back all 29,000 of those people.
So we’re certainly looking at that very clearly and as you know a large part of postal transformation is about helping us to automate certain aspects of our mail operations so that we do not need to handle the mail in the same way we do today, and therefore that means we will not need as many people in the future as we have doing mail handling today. But it is, and to your question, I don’t think there will be large layoffs, not at Canada Post, but I do think that in all fairness to you there may be some. And I’m pretty certain that there will be some, but the numbers that we are talking about are very small, relative to the size of our company.
Am I now thinking about a general plan of special incentives? I don’t think I need such a plan. And I have to be worried about harnessing any cash in the company so that we can reinvest and make sure that the future is secure for the company. So I don’t think that I’m quite in the situation of Bell Canada, where I have to hurry the retirements along with financial incentives, and I have to worry about an affordability issue. So in answer to your question, there will be, I think, some layoffs, very, very little in relation to the size of the company. We’re going to make use, as much as possible, of the attrition opportunities that we have at Canada Post. Which means that, you know, we’re going to have to do things in a different way… if it is a choice between paying people to do what they’re going to do anyway until they retire to a fully-indexed retirement, and retaining what little cash we have in the business to reinvest in our future, my balance would be on this hand, rather than that one.
Question 3
What impact will such tough economic times have on Postal Transformation?
Answer
Well there… it’s certainly going to have some impact. What I have done to date is the following: I, with Cal Hart and others on our team, we have scrubbed every single investment that this company has to make, everything from new street letter boxes right up to new sorting equipment for the plant in Winnipeg. We have had days and days of meetings in a windowless room, and I can tell you, going through, in what I am sure some of our colleagues feel was just mind-boggling detail, every single capital spend item on the list everywhere, including Postal Transformation. So what we are trying to do with Postal Transformation — because we know that is the future of our company, and we know that the people who are planning those work processes need to continue that work… That analytics needs to go on, and go on in an orderly way if we are going to be successful in the future. We’ve tried to go through all of the list of investments that were in the Postal Transformation area. It is true that where we thought we could put something off by a year or so without damaging the overall thrust of the program, we did decide to do that. But most of the early decisions that we were going to make — I think it’s in the order of … I’m going to say $750 million worth — most of those decisions are still on plan for the year in which they were originally planned. But there was some effect. There were things that we thought, you know what, honestly we did not compromise the program, we did not compromise our ability to define and design our future if we put it off, and so we did.
Question 4
Have you considered approaching the workforce with reduced hours and/or job sharing?
Answer
Yes we did. And we do a little bit of that but certainly not a lot. In our Operations, it’s very hard to do. You know, you have to cover off those routes if you’re talking about delivery. So the ability to workshare a delivery route is not as practical as you might at first blush think. There are obligations with respect to what is actually in a route. It’s no secret that one of my frustrations at Canada Post is how long it takes us to restructure routes when we know that we have a good way to do so. So if you were going to have a work sharing program and delivery on a grand scale, it’s just not practical. There’s too much route restructure that would have to go in advance of that in order to get it in place in time. We need to take measures that are going to have an impact in 2009. That means we take measures that we can take now in the first quarter so that those savings keep us in the black at the fourth quarter. So we did think about that. But we thought that most of our jobs, you could not easily conceive how you can do wholesale work sharing and still get savings to the bottom line when we need to have them.
Question 5
With the economic impact affecting our customers so strongly, is this an opportunity for Canada Post to edge out higher-priced competitors and provide lower cost shipping options for parcels?
Answer
Absolutely. I see Louis O’Brien, my colleague who runs the parcel business, just nodding his head affirmative to that. Every single one of our lines of business are totally on their game. OK? We have scrubbed our entire customer list to see what can we put in a supplemental way into the pipelines and what we need to do differently in order to increase business with us from existing customers. So anything that we can do on the revenue side – with the technology and the cost structure that we have to make up that $250 million hole in the revenue that we expect – they are doing. So definitely, we do see opportunities to endear ourselves even more so to our customer base in 2009, for sure.
