Staff Absence and the World Cup

Can your business survive the World Cup season with both business productivity and good employee relations intact?  Whether you are a football fan or not the World Cup this summer will impact on all our lives both at home and at work. 

The CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) has issued some guidance on managing staff absences during this time.  Their suggestions include offering flexible working, shift swaps or unpaid leave as alternatives to taking annual leave (or ‘sickness’ absence).:However, while these may help with good employee relations with football fans, they should be carefully managed to ensure that staff levels are maintained, which could result in some people not being granted their requests.  Consideration should also be given to those who do not want to watch the matches but may still want the same flexibility for other reasons.

An alternative is to have special screening of matches, or to allow TV or radio coverage to be on in the workplace.  These suggestion may be disruptive to work, and would need to be carefully managed to avoid interruption to phone calls or clients.

Those using computers for their work may well want to follow the action in the internet, and a the company policy on this should be made clear.  It is a good time to ensure that your alcohol, sickness and absence, and disciplinary policies are up-to-date and made freely available to employees.

Although an employer is quite justified in taking no specific action at all, this could be an opportunity to build employee confidence that you care about them and their passions, and to enhance the work/life balance.