Posties taken on early for Christmas

With 78 shopping days to Christmas, the business needs to be ready for people shopping online and sending gifts through the post.

Chief executive Boley Smillie said the seasonal staff had started this week.

‘We are much busier than normal for this time of year and we are expecting the number of parcels to continue to climb as shoppers get prepared for Christmas,’ he said.

‘We will have up to 20 seasonal workers joining us and the first few started this week.’

Since April, as a contingency measure in response to Covid-19, the company had split its operational teams over five offices around the island. All the teams have now returned to Envoy House for the run-up to the Christmas period.

‘All of our teams have done a great job adapting over the last few months and now everyone is back working from Envoy House,’ Mr Smillie said.

‘This means our services will return to relative normality, including the same-day delivery of post arriving on the mail plane.’

Last year Guernsey Post made more than three million deliveries during December and in the run-up to Christmas there were nearly 30,000 parcels delivered a day.

This would then normally drop for the rest of the year – but this has been no normal year. During April and May, parcel volumes were up by a third as the population was locked down.

Mr Smillie said the company was ready for the festive season, but islanders could help to make everything run smoothly.

‘We always advise people to order early for Christmas, but it is even more important to do so this year,’ he said.

‘The Covid-19 situation means supply chains will inevitably be under more pressure.

‘Customers can really help us at this time by displaying a note on their door if they are self-isolating. Our posties will then knock on the door and leave any packages on the doorstep.’