Royal Mail board to make deliveries

The Royal Mail is to force its new board directors, including some of the biggest names in the City, to become postmen so that they learn about the business "from the ground up". Non-executive directors such as Richard Handover, the chief executive of W H Smith, Mike Hodgkinson, the chief executive of BAA, and John Neill, the chief executive of Unipart, will join postmen on their 5am rounds, perform a stint in sorting offices and drive delivery vans. The new directors, who each earn more than pounds 500,000 a year from their other jobs, are likely to be joined by Adam Crozier, the Royal Mail's new chief executive. The company's directors believe that it would be unfair to ask the non-executive directors to take on such duties if their new boss – who was ousted as chief executive of the Football Association last year – was not prepared to do the same. The plan mirrors the successful BBC series Back to the Floor, which films company bosses undertaking menial jobs in their organisations. The Royal Mail version is the brainchild of Allan Leighton, the company's chairman, who believes the efficiency of the business – and workforce morale – will be boosted by directors performing the basic jobs. The chairman, who has done his own stint with ordinary worker, said that he has now introduced a rule whereby all managers spend their first week with the company "out and about doing the jobs". "They get up, they sort, they do the walk and get on a Parcelforce lorry," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "They might spend one shift at the call-centre desk so they know what kind of calls come in. If you do not know how the job is done, how can you understand how it works? The non-executives will have to do at least three jobs but definitely one of those will include a walk with the postman. They have all been given the heavy-weather coat the posties wear so that they are not wandering about in suits." Mr Leighton added that managers should also be trying other ways of learning about the problems faced by workers. He recently ordered the team responsible for purchasing shoes for postmen to wear them as well. Mr Leighton said: "The postmen's shoes are very uncomfortable and that is a big issue. You can't have 100,000 people walking about with blisters." "I have been wearing them for a week. It's no good walking around on carpet: you have to see what it is like walking in them on the road for three and a half hours. Waterproofs are the other thing: the waterproofs let in the water. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to performance are shoes and waterproofs and the directors have to experience that." The three non-executive directors will be the best-paid postmen most homeowners have ever seen. Mr Handover is paid around pounds 450,000 a year before bonuses as the chief executive of W H Smith; Mr Hodgkinson, who as chief executive of BAA is responsible for running seven British airports, earns a basic salary of pounds 512,000; and Mr Neill, the chief executive of Unipart, the car-parts supplier, received remuneration of pounds 668,000 in 2000. They joined the Royal Mail as non-executive directors earlier this month and will each be paid around pounds 30,000 a year for a maximum of one day's work a week. Mr Crozier will be paid a basic salary of around pounds 500,000. The decision to force the executives to become postmen has been welcomed by employers' groups but has done little to impress the Communication Workers Union. A union spokesman said: "It's seen as more of a gimmick than anything else. They do it for a couple of days and they think they have fought at the battle of the Alamo. It's a gesture, this notion of mixing with the troops. I know Leighton has done it but he's unusual anyway. If there were an exchange deal whereby our people could take a seat on the board for a bit, that might be more interesting." Norman Candy, a postman based in the West End of London, criticised the move as "patronising" for the people who have to do the jobs every day. "If they really want to know what it is like, they should do it for two months and then try to live on the wages as well," he said.