Over,
I'm with you. Once we hit labor day, peak is here in a blink of an eye! Just like the summer is over after 4th of July weekend.
As for peak planning, I've only heard one thing so far. There will be no more helpers riding bikes ever again here in MA. They tried it last and it was a failure and worse, it was a complete embarassment of the company. A 60 year-old woman peddeling a bike loaded with packages through an apartment complex? I wish I could have filmed it!
Another thing they have done lately was to put big signs on our winshield (billboard anyone?) advertising driver helper jobs for $9.50 an hour. I'm sorry but this is a mistake also. Nobody wants to make $9.50 an hour for any job. I would get them to the interview and then drop this bombshell on the ingnorant souls!
I heard we are hiring a limited amount of temps so my guess would be an emphasis on hiring helps, and lots of them. Last year they had helpers on more routes than ever in the past. Routes with 2 hours of pick-ups were getting helpers during some part of the day!
I think the key is finding quality helpers. We have all seen the useless ones that UPS still insists on hiring because its a body. You know, the 450 lb man, the 19 year-old girl constantly on the phone, the 66 year-old great-grandma, and your run-of-the-mill lazy pot head.
If you give me one of these we are going to struggle. If, however, you give me a decent preloader, a P12000, and a GREAT helper (I had one last year so they do exist) and I'm good for 380-400 stops a day.
I mention the P12 because I've learned over the years of helpers and house calls that too much time is spent looking for packages. The P12 will reduce selection time significantly and allow us to do 40/hour easily.
Forty an hour may seem like a stretch, but my area has some serious stop density.
Brownie