We New Zealanders are appreciative and sympathetic of just how tough the COVID-19 pandemic has made life for our frontline workers.
Sure, it sucks being trapped in our homes during lockdown, but we all know that's a small sacrifice compared to those made by our nurses, doctors, police, first responders, supermarket workers and others working under incredibly stressful conditions.
One group of essential workers experiencing the effects of coronavirus are the team at NZ Post.
You may have a parcel arrive a day or two late, you may get on the phone to see where it is only to wait on hold for a good wee while - but there's a very good reason for these delays.
NZ Post is now going through the busiest period in its history, with higher demand than even any Christmas on record.
"Last week we received over 2 million parcels. To put that in perspective, two weeks ago we received 1.4 million ," says NZ Post Chief Customer Officer Bryan Dobson.
"We've recruited hundreds of extra processing staff, we've got hundreds of extra vans on the road, we're working around the clock to get these parcels delivered to New Zealanders."
Having to ramp up their service so drastically in a two-week period is very difficult for a business that operates such a physical network, with its people, vans, trucks, depots and processing centres.
"Our ability to scale quickly is very limited. So having to scale for 600,000 extra parcels over two weeks brings a lot of challenges," says Dobson.
You might be wondering why this particular period is the busiest ever for NZ Post, but it makes sense when you think about the alert level rules around sending stuff.
During COVID-19 alert level 4, only essential items can be sent. But during level 3 and 2, anything can be sent, and as most physical retail stores remain closed a massive amount of online shopping takes place. While Auckland remains in level 4, its residents can have anything delivered to them by companies in all the lower-level areas around the country.
"The demand for online shopping has increased in level 3, and that's particularly the case when we move from level 4. As long as at least some part of the country is in level 3 or above, we expect demand will remain at this kind of level."
NZ Post did a comprehensive review after the 2020 lockdowns, looking at how it performed and changing a lot of things about the business based on what it learned. That included completely reconfiguring the Auckland network to cope with this type of surge.
But the current increase in demand has hit when deliveries were already on the increase as online shopping continues to become more popular.
"Year-on-year we've seen online shopping in New Zealand increase as more and more people buy more products online. We're seeing our parcel volumes grow by about 10 percent every year," says Dobson.
"So already we've got growth and our business is building more and more capacity, then we have these massive volume spikes on top of that."
To make matters worse, NZ Post's main operating centre in Auckland had two staff members test positive for COVID-19, severely disrupting their operations as people had to self-isolate at home.
The company's focus is ensuring they're prioritizing staff health and safety, essential items including pharmaceuticals, food and medical supplies.
NZ Post is also working with customers on their backlogs of items built up while they have been closed or under level 4 restrictions and what they expect in terms of new demand. They're working to increase the volume of parcels into the network and managing it on a day-to-day basis
"But even with those disruptions our network team has responded incredibly well to get the massive increase in parcels delivered," says Dobson.
"Our workers are very proud of the role they play in delivering essential items up and down New Zealand. At the moment we're working incredibly hard to deal with those additional volumes. We have teams processing parcels right around the clock, we're delivering seven days a week."
Those extra efforts mean most parcels currently being delivered are getting to their recipients on time, but the others are being delayed, usually by one - three days. These delays also mean more people are calling the call centre.
"We ask for people to be understanding and to be patient while our people are working so hard to get parcels where they need to be. Your items will get to you and we always have up-to-date information on our website about the delays we're currently experiencing," says Dobson.
"We also ask people to wait for an item to be five days late before they call the call centre. There are a lot of volunteers helping out at our call centre as the demand is just so high."
NZ Post is a crucial part in our team of 5 million.
A little patience and compassion for their staff as they work so hard doesn't seem like too much to ask.
This article was created for NZ Post.
