Royal Mail: assessing the risks to our people
Post & Parcel spoke to Shane O’Riordain, Managing Director of Marketing, Regulation And Corporate Affairs, Royal Mail to find out about the organisation’s COVID-19 strategy.
“Royal Mail takes the health and safety of our colleagues very seriously. Throughout this crisis, every decision we make puts the health of our people and our customers first. In assessing the risks to our people and making the necessary operational changes to protect them, we take professional medical and health and safety advice on a daily basis.
“We have already made a series of adjustments to our parcel handling procedures to protect our colleagues and our customers. The vast majority of mail can be posted safely through the letterbox without any interaction with the customer at all. We are temporarily not handing over our hand-held devices to customers to capture signatures. Standard ways of working are being revised to ensure that, wherever possible, colleagues stay two metres apart. We have implemented a new rule that means there will only be one person in a Royal Mail delivery vehicle at any one time. These new social distancing measures are aimed at offering further protection for our colleagues and our customers.
“We have taken a number of additional measures and provided preventative guidance to our colleagues in line with public health authorities. This includes promoting regular hand washing with soap and water. The hand soap that we provide is effective for hand washing and good hand hygiene. We are providing disposable latex gloves to colleagues who want them. These are available on request. We have also adopted enhanced disinfectant cleaning of communal areas in all Royal Mail sites on a daily basis.
“Over the last few weeks we have been inundated with messages and pictures from our customers across the country in praise of the extra lengths our postmen and women have been going during the coronavirus crisis to raise spirits, and money for local charities. We know that local communities really value what our postmen and women are doing in these challenging times, and we’re really proud of them, too.
“We have three priorities as we deal with the current situation: protect our people, protect our country, and protect our company.”
