For political staff, election year is as close as you get to a performance review.
Political staff have a reputation for being self-important panic merchants. Sometimes it’s a valid criticism. More often, it’s because the people they advise are important and the jobs they do are genuinely stressful.
If you hate performance management, professional development courses, clunky leave portals, or the daily quiz, become a political staffer; you’ll be bothered by none of that in these roles.
The job of a political staffer is fundamentally different to that of a public servant. Not just on paper but in terms of expectations and working conditions. Shortly, parliament will see a whole new intake of political staff, and likely some new-entrant politicians.
My first role for Parliamentary Services started in 2008, near on my 21st birthday. I worked for two MPs, two leaders of the opposition, one prime minister and have since worked as a freelance advisor on resources like induction handbooks for press secretaries and political advisors.
The newbies will soon learn the parliamentary precinct is a peculiar place to work. There are bars and restaurants on-site, a pool, a gym, portraits of past prime ministers that loom large in the corridors and a 4,500-strong art collection including a lock of Queen Victoria’s hair.
The job takes you to every corner of the country and sometimes overseas where you get the opportunity to truly work 24/7. It’s this promise of glitz and glam that has sustained some pretty unhealthy work habits over the years.
For political staff – present and aspiring – election year is as close as you get to a performance review. For those in opposition, moving over to the Beehive is a journey to the promised land, and not everyone will make it. For beltway escapees, the pull to return can often be ignored until someone else convinces you to come back. It’s almost always ill-advised. And for new entrants, there’s an induction folder somewhere in the bowels of the Department of Internal Affairs that will tell you next to nothing about the realities of your role.
As a political staffer, your brain will become cloud storage for your member of parliament. You will be the custodian of their political agenda, troubleshooter-in-chief, timekeeper and listening ear.
You will need to manage conflicting priorities and personalities so your MP doesn’t have to. You are paid to ensure your MP’s time isn’t monopolised and that all work that reaches them is of a high standard. You are there to ensure they are never surprised.
That does not mean you will never be surprised. Spare a thought for the staff of recently ousted National Party minister Chris Penk… there are some circumstances you just can’t get ahead of.
I’ve got a genuine interest in improving the working lives of the people who prop up our politicians, and recently I spoke to Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment, from the University of Dundee, about what New Zealand might do differently to better manage the talent of aspiring and experienced political staff and their transition between administrations. We’d met when she interviewed me for her book; The Human Resource Management of Political Staffers.
Lees-Marshment has studied political staff working in the UK, New Zealand, Australian and Canadian Parliaments. She says that the picture is muddy and no country has yet got it right. Political staff abroad face sub-standard working conditions including limited or absent HR processes, ineffective orientation, a lack of fit-for-purpose training, and deficient performance management. She also cites rising mental health problems including high burnout.
“The findings were so stark I published advisors’ descriptions of their workplaces in their own words,” says Lees-Marshment.
These included:
- “It always felt like everything was on fire.”
- “Sometimes it feels almost like some sort of 18th-century feudal system”
- “The Hunger Games”
- “I was a director at 26. I had never been a director before, and I never got formal training to be a director.”
- “You’re never not at work.”
She says the work of political staff is often misunderstood: “Unlike permanent public servants, political staff have no job security, do not have clear performance management or rewards, and often lack even basic rights that other professions take for granted.”
One reason these jobs are so precarious is the events-based contract that ties a staffer to their MP or minister personally, in an antiquated employment relationship that can resemble a bad marriage. You could consider the events-based contract as the one thing that sets the political staffer apart. But that would be missing the point. The work of political staff is events-based, there is no getting around that. But there is plenty that could be improved between coups, elections, and political falls from grace.
Lees-Marshment points out there is a large-scale bureaucratic infrastructure to support public servants. Political staff get nothing in comparison, and it is “deeply unfair”.
“The job of a political staffer requires high levels of agility and learning at speed without appropriate training; they have to work much longer hours, including being contactable in the evenings, weekends and even at night time; they are under significant public scrutiny where something small going wrong can end up on the evening news.”
I saw the insecurity, pressure and intensity bubble up in novel ways. I remember a group of opposition staff being reprimanded for actual sword fighting one night. I doubt it was in defence of the honour of one of their MPs… but ceremonial swords were swung about the office. Politics can be cut-throat.
Unless you do something genuinely stupid, the job of a political staffer is unusual in that your career trajectory is largely out of your control.
“Political staff know that even if their politician is re-elected, decisions about what position they might occupy are influenced by lots of things that have little to do with their performance,” Lees-Marshment says.
Lees-Marshment recommends an Office for Political Staff. “We’d keep the best political staffers in the system which is good for individuals but also good for democracy,” Lees-Marshment says.
An Office for Political Staff would oversee a more rigorous selection process. The office would not only provide politicians with pre-assessed candidates to choose from (Ministerial and Parliamentary Services have made gains in this space) but give political staff themselves a bit of dignity, like that their value exists beyond their current contract.
Right now, if you want to continue in a political role you have the option of putting your CV into this faceless electronic pot of people from where it may or may not be plucked, by who knows who, for who knows what. When you’ve put your life on hold for a political job, it’s a thankless place to end up every three years.
Detractors argue that when politics, power and control are involved, no new office is going to make a difference.
“Few would argue that we couldn’t do things better,” Lees-Marshment says.
“No one is suggesting an Office for Political Staff would remove politicians’ choice – they would always make the final decisions. But we could look after people better and keep people in the profession longer.”
The reality for political staff seems to be to work yourself into the ground and hope for the best.
“It frustrates me that there are so many reviews and organisational change programmes focusing on public policy and public servants, as if that is why government does not work. But the missing link is looking at how politics works.”
“You could take anyone, even the most clever and capable person, and drop them into these high-pressured public facing roles, without training, where they are expected to perform from day one, without appropriate support and management, and they would struggle. At the very least, they cannot reach their full potential. At their worst, the stress they experience hinders good decision making.”
Parliamentary Services chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, however, says New Zealand political staff are looked after as there’s “a team dedicated to ensuring members, and the staff who support them, receive personalised, high-quality services, and support aligned with their needs”.
“Professional supervision is also offered which provides staff an additional avenue for professional reflection, support, and development. Staff have access to a range of wellbeing support, including the Employee Assistance Programme which provides confidential counselling and wellbeing support for employees and their families,” he says.
Gonzalez-Montero says additional support is provided during the election period.
Just as well. With the election fast approaching, politicians will be running a ruler over their staff. Some will have signalled they’re over it, burnt out, not willing to do another turn through the revolving door. Others will be fiercely loyal, competent and accustomed to the rigour of the roles. But it’s the political newbies I have my eye on. I’m sure we can do better by these energised people, and we should.
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