Employment and the World Cup
With the time difference between the UK and Qatar being three hours, most of the England and Wales group matches will be at 7pm UK time, which fortunately falls outside normal working hours for most employees. However, there will be one England match kicking off at 1pm on 21 November and one Wales match kicking off at 10am on 25 November. In addition, bear in mind that there are 32 national teams in the World Cup and some employees may support a team other than England or Wales.
Where staff wish to take time off to work to watch particular matches, you can agree with them to take the relevant days (or half-days) as paid annual leave in the usual way. However, you may need to make clear that it may not be possible to grant all requests due to operational business requirements - if you’re in this position, apply a fair and consistent criterion for granting time off, such as first come, first served, or drawing names out of a hat. Also, be careful to ensure you’re dealing fairly with requests for time off for other reasons during this four-week period, as prioritising football-related leave requests over normal holiday requests could give rise to a discrimination claim.
Other options for enabling staff to watch the matches include special unpaid leave (but beware of setting a precedent for future sporting events), operating a temporary flexible working arrangement, screening the event in the workplace (but, if you do so, be clear to place an absolute ban on offensive or racially discriminatory language or rowdy behaviour, with a warning that contravention will lead to disciplinary action under your dignity at work policy and the privilege being withdrawn) or allowing staff to use your work internet to watch matches (subject to reasonable use). Whatever you decide, do make your rules crystal clear, including on the consumption of alcohol in the workplace.
Finally, there’s an increased risk of unauthorised absence, either from employees taking unapproved time off or because they phone in “sick”, e.g. on post-match days due to having a hangover. So, when setting out your rules, also warn staff that if they fail to turn up on match or post-match days, or they purport to phone in sick on these days and you have good reason to believe that’s not genuine, disciplinary action may be taken. If the employee has phoned in sick, you’ll need to investigate it and have some clear evidence that the sickness absence isn’t genuine before you can take disciplinary action.
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