Starmer’s Orwellian doublespeak on the office defies all logic

Business leaders are used to politicians speaking with forked tongues.

But our new government has turned doublespeak into a fine art and its conflicting positions on home working defy logic. 

On one hand, Keir Starmer’s official spokesman has attacked the ‘culture of presenteeism’, the disease of working in the office that can be cured by working from home. 

Doublespeak: Keir Starmer’s official spokesman has attacked the ‘culture of presenteeism’

On the other, the government has promised to introduce the ‘right to switch off’, preventing employers from contacting staff out of office hours in order to avoid ‘blurring the lines between work and home life’. 

I’m baffled. 

Contacting employees out of hours while they are at home blurs the lines between work and home. 

Yet presenteeism needs to be cured by more working from home. 

Angela Rayner’s trailblazing on this. Her staff must have been thrilled when she encouraged them to head home with their laptops and they’ll be counting the days until the law is changed to make it an offence to contact them out of hours. 

Don’t hold your breath for the promised reforms in housing, communities and local government. 

And now the private sector is now going to be forced to replicate this civil service nonsense. 

I am the CEO of Vardags, a large family law firm. After considering it extremely carefully we decided that the default is that most of our staff need to be in the office.

The most important benefit is that the mental health of our staff has measurably improved. 

What’s next? Don’t hold your breath for the promised reforms in housing, communities and local government

We’ve all, sadly, received letters from opposing solicitors at 5pm on a Friday that have been designed to give our client a horrible weekend. 

Sometimes they descend into personal attacks against the lawyers too. It’s not an OK way of behaving especially when vulnerable people are involved but sadly it’s an all-too-common tactic. 

But what’s truly awful is receiving those letters when isolated from an experienced colleague who can put a metaphorical arm round your shoulder and tell you that there’s nothing to worry about. 

Or away from your peer group who can share stories of the same thing happening to them. There is truly nothing like the buzz of an office, full of people who have a real affinity for one another, sharing a laugh and providing mutual support. And that support is absolutely vital for employee welfare. 

Stephen Bence is chief executive of family law firm, Vardags

Our people have fun, laugh, chat and form strong and lasting friendships. As human beings we need that. Not hours sitting alone staring at a screen. We need human connection, we need chemistry. It’s about living in a community. That’s what enables us to learn and teach, and what keeps us sane and happy. Being in the office also allows our junior staff to benefit from in person mentoring and learning by osmosis.

Our open plan office has our trainees sitting alongside our senior lawyers. I have always championed a non-hierarchical structure of work. 

Everyone makes a valued contribution. And this, of course, allows us to deliver the highest possible client service benefitting from genuine team problem solving. But we are not dogmatic. 

What I’ve described is the position for our London office. Our Manchester office handles different sorts of cases and serves a different set of clients many of whom live far from that city and want a remote service. So hybrid working works for them. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all model. 

As for contacting our staff out of hours, we avoid it wherever possible and particularly when people are on holiday. But to prohibit out of hours contact just isn’t realistic in the world of family law. 

Domestic violence peaks outside working hours. Parents abduct their children at weekends. Sometimes clients need reassurance in the darkness of their solitary evenings: they don’t want to talk to a night-shift lawyer, they want to talk to their lawyer.

What underlies Starmer’s aversion to ‘presenteeism’ is the idea that there’s no value to being physically present in one’s work community. 

At a time when depression, loneliness and dehumanisation are recognised as sicknesses running rampant within our society, this is short-termism at its worst. 

And there’s a troublingly Orwellian poisoning of the language with Starmer’s new speak. 

The reality is that what we need more of is ‘being present’, and indeed, as the Americans put it, ‘showing up’. The results, in happiness and in productivity, when we really, in person, show up for each other, are dramatically positive. 

I applaud the government’s declared passion for growth and productivity, but the measures it’s so far brought forward to deliver this will drive the polar opposite. Even by the standards of politics, it’s beyond parody. 

Stephen Bence is chief executive of family law firm, Vardags.