PostNL is extending its pilot schemes for multi-tasking postmen from next year, the AD writes.

By taking on extra jobs, PostNL hopes to keep the delivery service profitable, now that the amount of mail is going down some 10% a year.

The postal company already has a number of pilot schemes in place. In Amsterdam and Almelo postmen are reading water meters apart from their postal duties and in Almelo they have been photographing green spaces to help municipal environmental department Twente Milieu find out if they are tackling weeds efficiently.

In Gelderland postmen are checking the quality of roads while in Rotterdam they are participating in a pilot aimed at keeping an eye on isolated elderly people and sounding the alarm when mail accumulates or people don’t respond to the doorbell for a long period of time.

In Best a scheme to help the elderly live independently for longer also employs postmen will be started next month. PostNL employees will be handing out movement monitors which they will also read at regular intervals.

Waternet is happy about the results so far. Within weeks the PostNL workers, who are being paid extra for the additional work, were able to reach 600 out of 1000 Waternet clients who never respond to letters sent by the company. ‘It’s a great score’, Waternet spokesman Bart van Dijk told the paper.

According to PostNL most postmen like the greater variation that doing different jobs brings to their work.