SINGAPORE — Ten more stations that allow customers to pick up parcels from automated lockers will be available next month, as part of a S$100 million push by SingPost to improve productivity, enhance postal infrastructure and upgrade the skills of its workers.

The Pick your Own Parcel stations (POPStations) will mean postmen only have to send parcels to one delivery point — the POPStation — instead of 80.

Five such stations are already in operation and SingPost expects to roll out up to 100 of them island-wide in the next 12 months. The POPStations were among several initiatives it showcased yesterday as part of a learning journey organised by the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

SingPost is the first unionised company in the NTUC Infocomm and Media Cluster to adopt progressive work practices, which include redesigning jobs to make them easier and safer. It has also adopted the progressive wage model to get more Singaporeans to become postal delivery workers.

Since May, their career paths have been extended with a new job grade, the Postman Special Grade 2. This gives added recognition to staff with consistently good performance and rewards them with better promotion prospects and a longer salary range.

Said NTUC Deputy Secretary-General Heng Chee How: “What they have done now is to integrate at different levels and provide ladders for people to climb. They are not just academic ladders, they don’t just ask them to go back to school.”

Other SingPost initiatives include the purchase of Ezy Trolleys to make sorting easier, safer and less strenuous for its workers. Previously, mail and bulky parcels were sorted into drop bags, which could weigh as much as 20kg when full.

With the trolleys, workers can sort mail and parcels into trays, stack them on the trolleys and wheel them to the next stage without the risk of hurting themselves. This has improved sorting time by 20 per cent, SingPost said.

It has also sought to reduce its reliance on foreign workers by getting Singaporeans to re-enter the workforce. It now hires 680 housewives in the mail delivery section and another 217 in mail processing. S RAMESH