Royal Mail Group is the most recognised postal business in the UK. The brands,104 Royal Mail, Parcelforce Worldwide and Post Office® are known and recognised by businesses and domestic consumers alike. The group serves every locality in the UK and takes pride in its community policies. The strong service element of the Royal Mail Group is a key principle that runs through its culture. This case study focuses on how one of the business units, Royal Mail, addressed some of its challenges through participation in a group-wide management development intervention.
Royal Mail collects, processes and delivers 82 million items to 27 million addresses each day.105
However, such actions are part of the changes that the group must make if it is to survive in a competitive environment. Although the goals of the business are simple - the collection and distribution of letters and parcels - the operation of the processes and systems are complex. Of great significance is the effect of the decisions made by the postal regulator Postcomm. Postcomm's aim is to increase competition and customer choice within the postal distribution business. The fear for Royal Mail is that proposals made by Postcomm may affect their ability to provide a one-price-goes-anywhere service. But, whatever the final decisions made by the regulator, one detail is clear that change is going to happen in the future and more rival organisations will be involved in the postal service. This means that the Royal Mail has to sharpen up its pace and willingness to flex to new challenges. In a news release in November 2003 the Chairman of Royal Mail Group, Allan Leighton said:
The key task for the rest of this year is to achieve the operational changes in Royal Mail as repidly as possible by moving to a single daily delivery, improving the efficiency of mail centres and streamlining the transport operation. We can't afford any delay He identified the need for key operational changes in order to achieve sustainable profitability. The group's Chief Executive, Adam Crozier, confirmed this need for change as the 'only way we can deliver long-term sustainable improvements in customer service, while generating sufficient cash to run our business'.107
HOW EASY WILL IT BE FOR ROYAL MAIL TO INITIATE THE CHANGES?
Currently, Royal Mail is one of the largest employers of male labour in the UK and of the 210 00 employees, 81 per cent are male. The average length of service is high and there are examples of workers from the same family spanning generations.
Historically, the organisation has operated as a hierarchy with lines of command and control that separate the centre (Head Office) where decisions are made, from its local offices. Decision-making has tended to be 'downward' with instructions provided for the implementation of processes. This has the effect of 'fracturing' the organisation into segments and regions into separate parts. One of the consequences of this machine-like bureaucracy is that the postal workers can feel that they have to react to and comply with orders rather than take an interest in, challenge and question what they are doing.
Bureaucracies often generate passive employees who are not engaged in improving the businesss. In this environment, discontent can breed powerful informal leaders and in Royal Mail this has materialised through unofficial strike action affecting customer service and profitability.
The core of the business is collecting, sorting and delivering mail, so it is no surprise that there has been a heavy concentration in amending and improving operating systems. Improvement projects have tended to follow one another with rapid succession leading to a 'flooding' of changes across the organisation resulting in a certain amount of 'initiative fatigue'. In addition, changes have tended to be top down, reinforcing the command and control style of management.
The current situation at Royal Mail can be summarised thus:
■ history and tradition of being a service provider with societal significance;
■ community involvement particularly in rural areas;
■ nostalgia associated with traditional business model and working practices;
■ bureaucratic organisation with typical command and control patterns of management;
■ dominated by unskilled male employees;
■ challenging employee relations environment;
■ process-dominated organisation;
■ change in the past has been fragmented, initiativebased and top down;
■ facing dramatic changes in the external environment with greater competition and regulator's involvement.
DEVELOPING A VISION FOR THE FUTURE - WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN
With strong leadership from Allan Leighton and Adam Crozier, Royal Mail Group is clear about what needs to be done to achieve renewal of the business.
A key part of this is to re-engage its workforce by making Royal Mail Group a great place to work. It is recognised that there has to be culture shift. To achieve operational success the business has to draw out everyone's talents and experiences. To achieve this, the focus has to change from one based on processes to one that engages people. Encouraging involvement in the shaping of the businesss is seen to be essential in building capability, but it requires a change in management style.

Alongside this shift in management style the business intends to focus just on those issues that will have a significant impact on the business.
Responsibility for decision-making and target setting is transitioning to operational managers in a move to create greater freedom to act. Where barriers exist, managers will be expected to remove the blockages and seek support as necessary. In this new era, it is critical that managers are able to optimise resources and move the business forward by managing people in clear performance terms.

Questions

(a) Why has Royal Mail Group decided to tackle management development as the cornerstone for change?
(b) How would you sell the programme to suspicious line managers? What would you say and how would you say it?
(c) Identify the potential hurdles that could impact on the programme and prevent it from being fully effective.
(d) Using Royal Mail as an illustration, discuss the intrinsic problems of implementing change in a large bureaucratic organisation.
(e) Describe how this case study applies key principles of learning and suggest ways in which the programme could be assessed.