Finland’s Posti is to outsource most of its remaining 98 own post offices to partners with up to
380 redundancies but also plans to expand its overall service point network.
The company announced today that it will ‘renew’ its service point network in order to offer
longer opening hours, individual flexibility and new online services in response to changing
customer needs. About 90 per cent of the 800 postal outlets in Finland are already operated by
partners.
“People’s mobility, use of time and the type of service they expect are changing. Customers
want to visit Posti at the same time while running other errands or shopping in malls. According to
a survey conducted by TNS Gallup, more than 70 per cent of Finns want Posti outlets to have the
same opening hours as shops, i.e. customers want service in the evenings and on the weekends,”
explained Riku Kuusisto, Vice President in charge of Posti’s service point network.
In the latest move, most of the remaining 98 post offices will also be transferred to
partners. Employment negotiations will start on April 28 affecting 477 staff. At most 380 full-time
staff could lose their jobs, with the changeover phased over the next four years (2015-18).
All employees have the opportunity to participate in the Uusi polku (New Path) support
programme, which offers training and support for job seeking, retraining, or becoming an
entrepreneur. Customers will be informed of any changes in their local postal outlets well in
advance, and the outlets will continue their normal operations until then. The negotiations will
not affect other Posti services.
The Finnish postal group explained that in the current business environment it cannot
maintain the location of its postal outlets or provide flexible opening hours in a cost-effective
manner.
“It is important for us to provide services that meet our customers’ needs. Postal outlets
run by our partners offer our customers an easy way to run their postal errands, and there are
already nearly 800 postal outlets, i.e. more than 90 per cent of all postal outlets, operating
under our partners,” Kuusisto emphasised.
He pointed out that a similar change of transferring postal outlets to service providers has
occurred previously in, for instance, Denmark, Sweden, Norway or Netherlands, where postal
companies have very few or no postal outlets of their own.
However, Posti also stressed that the total number of its service points will continue to
grow over the next few years due to the renewal. The plan is to extend the network from the current
1,400 service points, which include 470 parcel points, to 1,500 service points by 2017. The number
of parcel points will be increased to cope with rising volumes.
Meanwhile, Posti has agreed to sell off three postal centres, one warehouse and one freight
terminal in Finland to Norwegian company Ness, Risan & Partners (NRP) for about €120 million.
Posti will continue to use the facilities based on long-term leases.
