LTB 312/24 - SISO Overtime Management - Business Recovery, Transformation & Growth Agreement (Appendix 5 - Data Use and Performance Management)
No. 312/24
Dear Colleagues,
SISO Overtime Management – Business Recovery, Transformation & Growth Agreement (Appendix 5 – Data Use and Performance Management)
Branches and Representatives will be aware of the details as set out in the Business Recovery, Transformation & Growth (BRT&G) Agreement, Appendix 5, Data Use And Performance Management, and paragraph 4, which sets out the following: –
Opportunities to streamline pay administration
A joint trial will be initiated to evaluate how the attendance time data arising from the deployment of Scan In Scan Out technology could support a streamlined feed to attendance data and payroll to simplify and reduce the amount of back-office activity involved in pay administration.
Any changes will only be via local management intervention and there will be no auto deduction of contractual pay, allowances, Scheduled Attendance, overtime (e.g., where a (verbal) contract for overtime pay has been agreed with the manager prior to commencement).
Accordingly, in June we were approached by Royal Mail to meet in order to discuss this aspect of the Agreement. Unfortunately, and from the outset, it became very clear that the company wanted to go beyond what was set out in the BRT&G Agreement.
Indeed, the first few meetings were held against the background of Royal Mail seemingly setting out a position whereby SISO data would be the process to validate all overtime and Scheduled Attendance pay based on ‘recorded/scanned’ times, thereby removing the clear commitment outlined in the BRT&G Agreement and the 2021 Pathway to Change Agreement, that such data will not be used to automatically deduct pay.
Alongside this, Royal Mail further set out the position that it wanted to pilot the use and application of SISO for recording overtime worked and do so within a very short timescale and then move quickly to a full national rollout in October.
This unsurprisingly led to several challenging meetings, which also included further representation to the company at a very senior managerial level via the DGSP.
However, following a further period of discussions, we have now reached an agreed position with Royal Mail in terms of a joint trial on SISO Overtime Management, confirmed in an exchange in correspondence and which has been endorsed by the Postal Executive.
A summary of the trial is outlined here:-
Key Principles
All overtime will be paid in line with current arrangements and agreements
All verbally agreed overtime will be paid as per that agreement between the manager and the OPG
P552s will be retained throughout the trial, whilst we explore an aspiration to replace this with an equivalent digital solution
Arrangements
Managers will be required to enter all overtime on the Attendance Schedular
Managers will be required to enter all overtime in the overtime sheet
Employees will continue to scan in and out in line with the current SISO process
For the period of the trial all sites will retain P552s to parallel run with the new digital solution
All verbally agreed OT will continue to be paid as per today
Deployment
The trial period will run through to the 7th October
The trial sites will be:
Sheepscar Delivery Office
Pudsey Delivery Office
Sheffield South DO
Sheffield South East
There will be a Joint Working Group that meets weekly to review progress and any feedback, consisting of the RM Project managers, National union Representative, Local Unit Manager(s), Unit CWU representatives, and Unit CMA representatives.
The trial will be extended beyond the above 4 sites to the whole ROD area, for a further 4 weeks, to test its impact on a larger scale.
A “Go/No -Go” for the broader National rollout will commence on the 7th October, to inform the National go live decision, including consideration for a resolution pathway for a replacement of the P552 process.
The CWU would be fully involved in this “Go/No-Go” process.
While the initial trial activity is Delivery based subsequent extension and potential Go/No-Go roll out would include Processing Units where SISO is in use.
Alongside the above, another aspect of the trial that Royal Mail has been keen to highlight is how moving away from the current paper-based recording system to a digital application, via SISO, will considerably improve the current high level of problems in terms of delayed or missed overtime payments.
We have secured full union involvement in the trial along with wording that ‘the CWU would be fully involved in this “Go/No-Go” process’, and have equally fulfilled our commitments within the BRT&G Agreement, however it is recognised that this will likely remain a potentially difficult issue for the CWU and our members given the nature of this subject and our longstanding concerns in this area.
However, we strongly believe that we simply cannot, nor should we, face away from dealing with this issue despite its potential consequences, as all such an approach would do is offer the company a free hand on all aspects of SISO along with the impact on our members’ pay.
Any enquiries to the content of this LTB should be directed to the Outdoor Department reference 540, email address: Pharacz@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Baulch
Assistant Secretary
Davie Robertson
Assistant Secretary
Yorumlar