Former NZ Post boss targets productivity at UK Royal Mail

Former NZ Post chief executive Elmar Toime has started his new job as executive deputy chairman at Britain’s Royal Mail.

His last day at NZ Post was late last week. His deputy John Allen has taken the helm while an international search is undertaken to find a replacement.

Mr Allen is regarded as a front runner to take the job permanently and had Mr Toime’s endorsement.

Before he left, Mr Toime said his main challenge at Royal Mail would be to improve productivity through better interaction between the different business activities.

“There are productivity steps that have to be taken. They are looking for interactions between different elements of the postal business,” he said.

“In terms of what make the elements of a postal business operate together . . . the issues are pretty similar (to NZ Post).”

He regarded Royal Mail to have “huge opportunities” in logistics and parcel services.

Royal Mail was regarded as a benchmark postal service, with a high standard of service and “terrific” brand, he said.

“It has been a very good business for many years. It has always consistently been profitable.”

But for one reason or another, in a changing European environment, events had caught up with Royal Mail and it had not kept pace, Mr Toime said. “Perhaps the fact of its past success actually made it difficult for it to cope with incremental change.

“For many years it has been successful, so the urgency for change perhaps wasn’t felt as keenly.”

The other significant personal challenge would be dealing with an organisation 25 times the size of New Zealand Post.

In NZ Post “many thousands” of the 10,000 staff knew him “reasonably well”, a measure of his popularity.

“In the UK with about 220,000 I can’t expect that sort of personal contact and knowledge with people,” Mr Toime said.

He retains a New Zealand connection through his directorship at Sky City.