Pros
Lots of walking keeps you fit and healthy. Great if you're into mindfullness and 'present moment' stuff like I am. Fantastic opportunities to meet and slowly get to know local people. Learn intimately about lots of interesting places. Most posties are very passionate in what they do and will go the extra mile, which is lovely to see. Great if you like driving. Pension benefits are still better than most similar places. Most non-management colleagues are helpful and willing to help you if you're new. Decent work-life balance. Strong on-paper health and safety principles. Union presence gives the opportunity for in-company democracy.
Cons
'Gig economy' style race to the bottom means that the job now doesn't pay as well as it used to. Two-tier workforce with new staff put on much worse terms and conditions, creating resentment within offices. Despite strong health and safety principles, these are routinely ignored by management and constantly swept under the rug in favour of gig-style "work harder" mentality that sees injuries becoming a more common occurence. Lots and lots of red tape when it comes to making sure you are doing the job correctly - procedure is still overly complex and borders on the side of defending the company against an insurance claim, rather than actually directing people on how to do their jobs effectively. It's not a rare occurence to see management pressuring postpeople on their pace, and using PDAs to track people. Upper management have long since been toxic - toxic enough to lie in front of the Government's Business Select Committee. A key example is the fact that Royal Mail prioritises parcels which has been going on since COVID - they STILL deny this! Training is patchy at best, or non-existent at worst. Being thrown on a rural round with no experience is common which is incredibly stressful, especially to inexperienced postpeople. Management are rarely helpful and are purely there to deliver great statistics for their bosses. (You do get the occasional good one.) Deaconian sick policy and draconian attitudes around sickness. Awfully hard workloads nowadays as the 'race to the bottom' mentality has put cold efficiency above the community feel that the job used to have. Vans are knackered, dirty, and not maintained properly and often have dodgy MOTs done internally within the company. It is not uncommon to be pressured to drive an un-roadworthy vehicle. Job is continuously getting harder as postpeople are given more and more tasks to do with the same or less time to do it. As a result, quality suffers, which can make a postperson feel bad/inadequate about not having the resources to do their job properly. Pressure on management to hire less people/not hire enough people to cover sickness which leads to postie stress as you are often asked to pick up the slack. Annual Leave is VERY inflexible at times though this does depend on office. (It's not uncommon to be asked to book all of your holiday in one go at the start of the year!) Despite the presence of a union, in-office support can be sloppy depending. Royal Mail still hold the buck - nowadays it feels like they 'allow' the union to intervene when they want to.