Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.09.2019, Blaðsíða 12

The post office in Iceland has an infa-
mous reputation. First of all, there’s
the fact that when residents receive
a package, they are notified by means
of a slip of paper, which is often lost.
If they leave the package at the post
office for this or any other reason, they
have to pay a fee for collecting a parcel
late, or worse, risk having it returned
to the sender without notice. Either
way, the fee to collect the parcel,
whether or not it is late, amounts to
more than the parcel’s actual worth.
It’s a nightmare.
But it looks like this may change.
Last May, Ingimundur Sigurpáls-
son left his position as CEO of Póstur-
and Birgir Jónsson, (whom you may
recognize as the drummer for the band
Dimma) took over. From the outset, he
had the goal of changing things for the
better. He says he took the job because
he likes a challenge. “It’s a high profile
business problem,” he says. “It’s a very
challenging thing, a relatively big
company in a tight spot.”
Big plans
The Grapevine met with Birgir to
discuss his ideas to improve the state
of the post office. His plan is twofold.
First, he plans to remedy the busi-
ness side of things. “The post has
been bleeding money,” he says,
adding that it has been necessary to
request additional funding from the
state. He wants to restructure the
company from the ground up. “We
have already changed the executive
management team,” he says. “Since
I have been there, we have hired new
managers and made the company a lot
more efficient.”
He also plans to sell subsidiary
companies. “We have been criticized
a lot because we own a lot of them. We
are in the process of selling those and
pulling back a little.” He hopes these
changes will be seen as an olive branch
to customers. “I would like to show
that we come in peace, at least.”
The more interesting part of his
plan, he says, is fixing the service
and getting it up to the same level as
neighbouring countries. “The good
thing about this industry is that we
don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We
just have to look at other countries and
do what they’re doing.” The focus for
the next 12 to 18 months will be to rise
up to that standard, especially with
their parcel industry.
Thus far, this work has been easier
than he expected. “I thought I was
going into this kind of very wooden,
dusty institution. It’s not like that at
all,” he says, adding that there are a lot
of people on every level of the company
who have ideas that, for some reason
or another, the previous management
team would not implement. He also
had expected to need to make a lot of
staff changes, but he has only had to
lay off a total of 18 people, all in the
management sector.
Settling on the price
One major criticism of the post office
has been how expensive it is. Birgir
speculates that the inefficiencies
of the business were always directly
Words:
Sam O’Donnell
Photo:
Provided by the
subject
& Art Bicnick
12 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16— 2019News
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