Tomorrow's Business Today
A good delivery from Royal Mail
Strong results from Royal Mail today and a really good stock market announcement to go with them. It’s detailed, it is straightforward, it is sympathetic and it admits when the company is getting stuff wrong.
In particular, if you scroll down to the bit titled “Rebuilding trust with our people” there’s a level of honesty not typical in company statements.
New CEO Simon Thompson ‘fesses up the results of a “trust” survey, which shows that “over 80% of our team feel proud to work for Royal Mail. However only 36% of our team felt valued and only 34% felt involved in decisions that impacted them”.
Thompson doesn’t directly address the bullying allegations that Royal Mail has faced, but he plainly isn’t shying away from them either.
The thing to watch here will be whether he keeps reporting those staff surveys, even if they aren’t going the way he wants.
No company statement at the moment is complete without praise from the boss to the staff for their Covid endurance – Thompson says his are “magnificent”.
Presumably, you can’t treat magnificent people badly. Hacks will dig out today’s statement if it turns out he does.
Press release of the day
The Jacobs Douwe Egberts coffee plant in Banbury has lost six million jars of coffee – 300 million cups worth – as a result of strike action over its “fire and rehire” plans, says this from Unite.
Unite has done the maths and reckons the lack of production has left the plant 600 tonnes of coffee down.
Some brands may disappear from supermarket shelves, it warns.