Postal workers at the Royal Mail are to each be given bonuses of £1,074 after the mail service announced record annual profits of £537m.
Royal Mail directors are set to receive a total of almost £10m – with Tony McCarthy, director for people and organisational development, reportedly in line for £1.34m. Chief executive Adam Crozier was paid more than £2.5m last year.
Over the past 12 months the state-owned operator made more than £2m a day in profits, compared with losses of more than £1.5m a day three years ago.
The £537m profit was a 144% rise on the previous year’s £220m. Yet Royal Mail’s Post Office subsidiary continued to make a loss, posting a deficit of £110m.
Since Royal Mail started a turnaround plan three years ago, more than 33,000 jobs have been cut at the organisation, while 2,500 urban Post Offices have closed.
Earlier this year, Personnel Today revealed that Royal Mail has reduced its HR spend by £57m in two years. As part of the overhaul, the HR team has been slashed from 3,700 to 2,400 people, through 1,400 job cuts and 100 new appointments. The HR to employee ratio has improved from 1:75 to 1:130.
Royal Mail’s chairman, Allan Leighton, said: “Postmen and women have achieved a fantastic turnaround. They will now deservedly get a Share in Success payment of £1,074 amounting to £218m of the company’s profit. It’s one of the biggest profit shares with employees in UK corporate history.”
Communication Workers Union general secretary, Billy Hayes, said: “What we have seen today is a successful publicly-owned service.”
Postwatch, the regulator, criticised the level of bonuses for board executives. “We would like to see a much closer link between bonuses and standards of service,” a spokesman said. “At the moment they are heavily skewed in favour of financial targets.”
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