Today as I sat enjoying my cup of tea at morning break I felt lucky. My ex-colleagues and friends will be sorting letters and packets, and tomorrow delivering mail. During the national strikes in 2007 I was doing the same. Two years on I had hoped both sides would be closer to a resolution, but I’m not surprised they aren’t. Whilst everyone is on strike a managers days are long, but when strikes are over is when the real work begins.

In 2007 as the strikes came to the close I was drafted back into Operations as a manager of seven delivery offices. The days and weeks that followed the strikes were tougher and more stressful that the strikes themselves. The mail was backed up and had to be cleared stretching our resources to the limit. Each morning I’d be trying to find ways to get mail out of the doors whilst some staff went off sick, refused to do overtime and agency staff didn’t show up. That period of time was the first my area manager lost his temper with me, something I don’t respond well too. I got angry back. I knew some of my staff, now working their hardest to clear the backlogs of mail, were close to breaking point.  My managers were working 12 hour days, six days a week, delivering mail as well as managing and trying to keep up to date with the paper work. Tensions were high, patience was low and the stream of delayed mail seemed never ending.

Thinking back to those weeks that followed the strikes I am so glad I left. I’m sparing a thought for my colleagues I left behind who are going to have to clear up this mess again, in a commercial climate that is so much worse than two years ago.

People have asked me what my opinion is, who’s side am I on. To be perfectly honest my answer is neither. In my opinion the result is a product of both sides. Below is what I perceived up to leaving Royal Mail in 2008.I think there were things that could have been done over the past few years to improve the situation, but even through my optimistic eyes I can’t see how the damage will be reversed.

In my time in London I worked across in Operations as an operational manager and a project manager. I came into contact with some of the senior management in the business (I once accidentally ended up on a table of Royal Mail executive team and board members at a territory presentation… I didn’t move!) and it was fascinating seeing the ins and outs of the business. The challenges are huge.

I think the government however were fools to go ahead with liberalisation first. Though I’m all for grasping opportunity, there are times when the UK really should stop sticking its hand up and shouting “pick me, pick me!” Germany and The Netherlands are the two countries best placed to have coped and survived through liberalisation, and the fact they weren’t keen to be the first out of the gates spoke volumes. But the government can’t go back. It can’t undo liberalisation without further crippling the economy by compensating all those companies who now compete with Royal Mail who would be owed vast sums of money. A burden the UK taxpayers can’t take on right now.

Before I rant I want to note that there are some fantastic managers, some great CWU reps and thousands of top notch front line staff out there. Unfortunately a few spoil everything for so many.

What the CWU got wrong…

• In 2007 if you asked strikers what they were striking for many didn’t know and were confused. There were all sorts of issues mixed up in the modernisation plans including pensions and pay. Some of the CWU rallied their members with whatever propaganda would be most effective the audience there and then. However the arguments were confusing and inconsistent. As far as I could I worked well with the CWU in my old area, even the most militant. But I think there are a lot of people out there who don’t really understand why they are striking or what they stand to lose. The next couple of days Royal Mail will lose millions, and it no longer has millions to lose. The long term impacts of this industrial action will see it lose even more. It’s fine for Dave Ward to call a strike when he’s not giving up a penny of pay (the union pays him) but I really don’t believe he represents a majority of postal workers or their interests.

• A significant number of the Royal Mail work-force started at 16 and have spent their lives with Royal Mail. They don’t know anything else, and so it’s somewhat reasonable for them to believe when the CWU tells them it could be better. But realistically it couldn’t. Look at any competing firm (e.g. TNT, DHL, FedEx…) and you’ll find the pay, benefits and even the revised pension are no where near what you can get at Royal Mail. To top it off Royal Mail just doesn’t have the money to pay any more. If it agrees to the CWU terms (which from my previous experience are quite unrealistic) the company would bankrupt itself in no time leaving many more with no jobs at all. And I’m afraid this is what this series of strikes will do, cripple Royal Mail beyond repair and leave many more people without jobs.

• The big difference from 2007 is that we are now in a recession. Some of the things the CWU had asked for back then, and presumably are asking for again now aren’t viable. I can only imagine that Royal Mail is losing money hand over fist anyway as the recession effects revenue from business mail and marketing mail. Yet it is incredibly difficult to get sacked from Royal Mail. No one in Royal Mail was getting forced out of their job; all savings came from vacant posts or voluntary redundancy. But the CWU don’t get this and the leadership has tunnel vision. Whilst people across the country are losing jobs, having pay freezes and even taking pay cuts, how are we meant to sympathise with those who had secure jobs before this mess started?

What Royal Mail got wrong…

• I was lucky enough to join Royal Mail on the Graduate Scheme. That meant I got the training I needed to do my job. Some operational managers are promoted from post men & women and struggle to even get the basic training needed to do their jobs. There is so much talent in Royal Mail, when the going was good that cash could have been invested in creating some fantastic managers. But so many lack confidence and don’t have the support to develop their management skills. Great managers bring out the best in their people, something that would have really helped avert this issue in the first place.

• I will be the first to admit that there is plenty of room for efficiency improvements in Royal Mail. I’ve been responsible for working out how much could be saved and how to make those savings in my offices. The issue here is that management want the changes and the cost savings “yesterday”. The reason this doesn’t work is that the workforce is never given time to evolve to deliver these efficiencies. As an operational manager if I had been given two years to work with my people and deliver the efficiencies I’m confident I could have done. But unrealistic time scales and expectations has only meant that they’ve not achieved the cost reduction envisaged and damaged their relationship with the workforce further. A one size fits all approach doesn’t work. Some delivery offices are excellent and are about as efficient as you can get. But some people want blood out of a stone. And that’s when you’re best performers stop caring, because they’ve had enough. The pressure to succeed in such a short period of time has ultimately led to failure. And anyone that says “The changes HAD to happen quickly” is missing the point that in the end a lot of them didn’t happen at all.

• As an operational manager I found that there was on occasions a complete lack of trust at the ability of the people I managed to do their job. As far as I could (with the pressures above me) I allowed my managers some space to breathe and this allowed two things to happen. Firstly some excelled in areas I would have never known best in, and some dramatic results were delivered. Secondly it exposed those managers who were struggling, who I needed to coach and train. With time those managers improved and started delivering results too. But I had to manage upwards so I could give them trust and responsibility. I took the heat to allow them to excel and deliver what the business wanted. When I left that job I was at breaking point myself, however my managers were delivering and continued to deliver after I moved on.

Royal Mail gave me a lot of opportunities, I was thrown in the deep end and I had some great times as well as the awful ones. But the bad managers, bad CWU reps and bad decisions have enough impact to make some of us feel that in the end it just isn’t worth it. My three years in Royal Mail I gave the company everything I had, there were times when my life was literally just work and sleep. I know plenty of others who are still doing that and who don’t get the credit they deserve. They are miserable. I know that some of those would leave if they had the time and energy to search for another job.

Ultimately the only positive solution will come if Royal Mail and the CWU can learn to work together and start to trust each other. I hope to see some pigs flying and hear that hell has frozen over in the near future.