27.04.2010

According to research from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 53% of working males and one in five females (21%) intend to watch the 2010 World Cup live matches scheduled to take place during office hours. Overall, 39% of workers said they intend to watch these games. But have employers thought about how this will be accommodated within the workplace?

Careful planning and fairness is critical. As an employer or manager, you should not presume that all employees share the same interest or non-interest in the World Cup as you and so forward planning is recommended. It is possible that your workforce will support different teams and therefore it would be worthwhile finding out who and when employees wish to take holiday over the period prior to the holiday requests being submitted. If you find out in advance when the games are being played and are realistic in your approach to your employees, you should find that you can manage the time required more effectively and arrange cover in the workplace accordingly. It would also be an opportunity to put some ground rules in place and highlight to employees that any absence due to sickness will be treated seriously and you will expect a justifiable explanation, with supporting evidence in some cases, e.g. doctor's or dentist's appointments supporting the reason for the absence.

As an alternative to employees taking holiday, for some organsiations, it may be possible to offer a flexible working arrangement over the period whereby employees make up the time lost at the end or the beginning of the day. If you do choose to allow employees the time to watch games during work time, employers might want employees to state their designated team and then only allow them to watch those games.

If you do find that there are far too many requests for leave over the period, then, in previous years, many employers have found it has been more productive to put up screens in the workplace or encourage some online viewing. However, as the band width to transmit the broadcast will be more than normal everyday usage, online viewing by too many employees could cause IT complications.Once again, it is therefore advisable to speak to employees and your IT provider about their intentions in advance of the games.

Not forgetting those who's interests are notfootball, consideration should be given to whether other employees who continue to work should be offered an alternative benefit. This would probably need to be some additional time off but it might mean that this could be kept to a minimum if offered by the company rather than an employee bringing it to the management's attention.