COMMENT: “Full employment protection works for nobody!”

My first day as a property professional in an estate agency 44 years ago is one I will never forget.

I had been recruited by the branch manager and I had never met the senior partner before I started my job. I was very young and very keen so I arrived at my office half an hour before it opened in order to be absolutely sure that I was not late.

The lights were on and the door to the porch was open so I went inside. There was no-one inside but I could hear voices in the back office so I sat down at one of the desks and waited patiently for someone to appear. After about half an hour the senior partner emerged from the back office and I leapt up to greet him.

“Good morning”, he said, “are you the new chap?”. “Yes,” I replied, “what would you like me to do?”. He looked at me as if I was stupid and pointed at the phone on the desk. “Well,” he said, “there’s the telephone, pick it up and sell something. If you’ve sold something by Saturday you can come back next week.” And with that he left.

I did exactly what he’d asked me to do and hit the phone with lots of enthusiasm and rather less skill. By Saturday I had sold two properties and within less than a year I was made branch manager!

‘Idiotic’ probation policy

Unfortunately this could never happen today, not because the market is tougher but because our new Labour government is planning to bring in legislation to ensure that new employees will no longer be given a probationary period.

Instead, they will be given full employment protection and the right to bring an unfair dismissal claim from the moment they start their employment.

This is utterly bonkers and the consequence will be that small businesses, including most estate agents and letting agents, will become too frightened to recruit aspiring property professionals because the cost of making a mistake will go through the roof.

This idiotic policy will have an appalling impact on the economy just at the time that we most need it to grow. The only thing it will achieve is to demonstrate yet again how out of touch our government is with the needs of small businesses who are responsible for employing a huge percentage of our working population.

Please Mr Starmer, think again.”

Please Mr Starmer, think again and allow employees and employers to continue with the time honoured process of employees choosing the wrong job and employers choosing the wrong person, realising that they have made a mistake and addressing it quickly and without cost.

The only thing this new legislation will do is to delay the inevitable and impose unnecessary delays and costs on both employers and employees. If this legislation had been in force last year we might still be waiting for evidence that Liz Truss was not a suitable candidate to be Prime Minister.

Adam Walker is a business sales broker and management consultant who has worked in the property sector for 42 years.