Starmer wants to give workers the right to switch off - at this rate a Tory-Reform combo will be needed to bail this country out - Kelvin MacKenzie
Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer
POOL
Don't Miss
Most Read
Trending on GB News
You would have thought Starmer was busy enough calling up his trade union mates and apologising for not giving their members a bumper pay rise yet to bother with work-life balance.
But no. I presume as a sop to idle voters No.10 made it clear in media briefings yesterday that Starmer intends to remedy a ‘’culture of presenteeism’’- that’s turning up to work to you and me- and from contacting workers out of hours.
The Times reports that ministers are considering how to implement the ‘’right to switch off’. If this country is ever to have major growth again, a more important policy surely must be the ‘’right to switch on.’’
All this employment tosh is part of reforms to workers’ rights that Angela Rayner is bringing in on behalf of her Lefty mates.
Measures include a ban on ‘’exploitive’’ zero-hours contracts, the day one right to sick pay (you can see why Labour love that idea) and making flexible working possible from day one.
I have nothing against WFH. For many companies it has been a life-saver. All companies are saving a fortune by not having to take up so much office space, and more importantly at a price they can afford, and secondly finding it easier to keep staff.
The reason employees love WFH is that they don’t face huge rail fares (a Guilford-Waterloo season ticket is £2,258 in after tax money) plus if the family have young children they can, with a bit of flexibility, not be put into expensive nurseries for so many days.
Add the fact that, if at home, they gain back the three hours a day they spend commuting. So, for certain jobs and companies, there is a lot to lot to gain from WFH.
But where I take issue with Starmer is when his No.10 spokesman said the following: "The focus is on improving productivity. We know that good employers understand that for workers to stay motivated and productive they do need to be able to switch off.’’
The reality is that those WFH are already switched off. I know of a youngish employee (rising 30) working for a major, publicly-quoted business who spends his whole day watching sport, wiggling his mouse very so often to defeat the software designed to capture idle workers.
That guy is in the minority but have you noticed that since WFH became a thing, the number of times you contact a call centre and are told; Your call is important to us but we are experiencing very heavy volumes right now and you are currently number 2,876,487 in the queue.
It must be said that it’s not just the employees down the ladder who are seeking to WFH. My experience is that lawyers, finance directors and the like have discovered the joys of having a large house and the ability to nip out for a couple of sets at tennis at lunchtime.
Where I part company with the drive to WFH is the idea that it will increase productivity. Are staff really self-motivated to do today what they can put off until tomorrow if there are no bosses hanging around? I don’t think so.
Is there any examples in the world where there has been an increase in productivity where WFH was standard and where bosses were no longer able to contact their people on a regular basis?
My fear is that by the time we find out that the system actually impairs productivity (only be a matter of time before train drivers will be demanding it) it will be too late to put the genie back into the bottle.
But that’s Labour for you. We will have five years of this before the nation discovers we are skint and not making anything. It will then be up to a Tory-Reform combo to bail us out.