Poczta Polska, the Polish Post (PP) needs to restructure itself. After trade unions managed to win wage raises, the company has a hole in its budget.
“Thanks to the repair program we will be able to have income again, what’s important: before the market liberalization. Increased sales and reduced costs will help us decrease the PLN 500m of loss caused by wage raises”, Mariusz Wnuk, PP deputy general director said.
This year, PP forecasts PLN 300m of loss. Next year, the loss may be even bigger. The management blames employees and the regulator (UKE) which did not agree to raise prices of its services. The management forgets, however, that it is one of the least effective post companies in Europe.
Today, trade unions will be presented the repair program. It provides for, among others, a change of employment rules, the incentive system, increasing effectiveness of the employees. Several months ago, Andrzej Polakowski, PP general director, said that there are about 20,000 excessive employees at the company. He has recently withdrawn from these estimates. The repair program provided for outsourcing, cost cutting in the use of telephones, delegations and business cars. Every single change in the enterprise employing 100,000 people results in protests of nearly 50 trade unions.
Today, PP is associated with long queues and unpleasant clerks.
“We want an average client to queue no longer than 10 minutes”, Norbert Babinski from PP said.
Interestingly, according to PP statistics, 80 percent of clients queue less than 10 minutes. The worst situation is in big cities after 4 p.m. And the worst situation is in Warsaw. According to statistics from SMG/KRC company, however, an average client after 4 p.m. has to wait 6 minutes. PP wants to close its offices in places where the demand is not big and launch them where the queues are the longest. It concerns 400 post offices while nearly 200 of them should be transformed into outlets which are less expensive.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.267)