Euro 2024 has commenced! Is your business prepared?
The Euro’s kicked off on Friday 14th, against the host nation Germany and our Scottish neighbours.
Depending on how the teams progress throughout the tournament, football fans may be invested for a whole month between 14th June – 14th July!
Matches during working hours, as well as heavy celebrations from the night before, may increase the number of absences within your workforce:
- 34.2 million Brits have admitted ditching work and responsibilites for sporting events (Londondailynews, April 2024)
- Searches on Google for ‘reasons to call in sick at work’ increased by 54% during the 2018 England v Belgium World Cup match (smallbusiness.co.uk)
- Almost half (47%) of England & Wales supporters intended to pull a sickie to watch their nation play at the 2022 World Cup (employeebenefits, Nov 2022)
- A study claimed if England reached the semi finals of the World Cup, more than 1.2 million UK workers said they’d call in sick to watch it (FBCMB, Nov 2022)
- 7.5m football fans planned to watch England in every 2022 World Cup game even during working hours (FBCMB, Nov 2022)
- During the 2018 World Cup, a research study found that one in ten people were planning to pull a sickie if England beat Colombia (smallbusiness.co.uk)
You can’t always avoid work absences around major tournaments, but here are some possible solutions to help to try and reduce it:
- Flexible working hours or staggered start and finish times to accomade working hours around match start times
- Extended or flexible breaks
- Attendance incentives during the tournament period
- Setting up screens in the workplace such as break rooms, common areas and office spaces
- Temporary staff can reduce pressure on match days
- Prepare for an increase in absence/holiday requests; and sickness leave if these are denied!
- Set out a policy for those working from home ahead of time
- Allow employees to wear football shirts
- Create a fantasy football league on the UEFA Euro 2024 official app
- Create a sweepstake
- Decorate the workplace with flags
- If watching the game isn’t possible, could they listen to coverage over the radio? or talkSPORT?
Have you got your sub bench ready?
If you feel you may need support to backfill shifts during the Euro 2024, please get in touch so we can be on standby to provide substitutions if needed.
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