There is no legal requirement for you to grant time off to your staff to watch the World Cup matches; it is up to you whether or not you want to consider it, taking into account the needs of your business.
There are a number of options open to you to ensure that your business is not adversely affected during the 4 weeks of the competition.
- Operate a "business as usual" approach whereby staff who want to take time off must request annual leave in the usual way. However, you may want to consider late requests for annual leave particularly if the employee’s national team does well during the later stages of the competition.
- Explore the possibility of screening matches in the workplace. This could lead to the business benefiting from increased motivation and improved morale. However, you would need to ensure that non-English staff are given the same flexibility to watch their national teams and be aware of the need to keep football-free areas for those not interested in the World Cup.
- Be flexible - allowing staff to work around the matches that they want to watch. An ideal opportunity for staff to use any time off in lieu owed by allowing flexible start or finish times or offering extended lunch breaks.
- Ensure staff are aware of any specific rules or procedures which you may want to put in place to deal with any unauthorised absence. For example, staff that are off sick could be required to notify their absence to a specific person. This would raise awareness that you are monitoring unauthorised absence closely during the World Cup period and would assist with identifying absence patterns on match days. Without fail, return to work interviews should be conducted as soon as the employee returns to work to record the reason for their absence.
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