The World Cup - An Opportunity for Team Building!
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There is no legal obligation upon you to provide either time off or in-house facilities to watch matches, but you may wish to consider the following: |
- Adopt a flexible approach to allowing time off, if requested.
- This may mean, however, that you end up having to turn down requests due to high demand.
- On the other hand, the adoption of a rigid and inflexible approach may also lead to reduced morale and increased absenteeism.
- You may therefore wish to look upon the World Cup as an opportunity to increase morale by turning games into team building events. This may simply mean investing a couple of hours here and there, possibly with:
- The provision of a television and light (preferably non-alcoholic) refreshments, particularly if employees are expected to return to their duties later in the day.
- A planned team meeting being brought forward to a set time before the start of a match.
Clearly, your policy will have to be determined by the impact upon your customer-facing employees, so that service and delivery are not adversely affected. You should also take into account the diversity of the UK workforce, so that the same flexibility is offered to fans of all participating teams, not just England. Otherwise a well-intentioned policy could be tarnished by a discrimination claim.
Finally, you should take the opportunity to remind employees that those indulging in over-zealous celebrations that result in absence from work may be subject to disciplinary action.
If you would like more information on how to draft and implement such policies and/or deal with associated absenteeism, please call David Thompson on +44 (0)20 7749 2727. |
