You’ve got mail

A number of Britain?s biggest employers have reportedly banned staff from having parcels delivered to the workplace because their post rooms are struggling with the volume of online shopping orders.

HSBC, JP Morgan and Citigroup are said to be among those who do not allow employees to have personal deliveries sent to their London offices. The DVLA and the Department of Transportation are understood to have similar policies in place. 

Longer working hours and restricted delivery slots mean millions of Britons each year are choosing to have packages delivered to work – or face missing the postman. But the extra orders are creating problems for busy mail room staff who are already responsible for corporate shipments. More time is also needed to put the parcels through security checks. 

Amazon, Collect Plus and Doddle are among the companies who have set up click-and-collect services where customers can pick up goods they have ordered online. 

Sophie McCarthy, retail analyst at Conlumino, said that while packages are still being delivered to home addresses – and increasingly to click-and-collect points – workplaces are seeing an increase.

She said: ?Because online retail is growing so much even a small percentage of those being delivered will have a big impact. If you are a company that already receives a lot of post it is doubling the work of post rooms.? The extra physical space needed to store the parcels and the added costs of additional processing are just two of the issues that arise from the increase. Those who do allow staff to have parcels delivered are now offering it as a perk, she added.

One post room employee of a major London-based firm said personal parcels accounted for between 20 and 30% of the thousands of deliveries each month.

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