Managing Staff during the Olympics and Paralympics 2024

The Olympic Games Paris 2024 runs from 26th July to 11th August and the Paralympics run from 28th August to 8th September. This is good news for sports fans but could cause difficulties for employers. Employers could be facing a serious loss of productivity if staff phone in sick or do not turn up for work. Our guidance below should help you manage the situation and create a positive outcome for both employer and employee. 

Management of Absenteeism
Many events will take place during work hours and some will go on into the evenings too. As well as watching in the daytime, there is the possibility of increased absenteeism on the mornings following evening events. Employers may see a rise in the number of holiday requests on such days and there is also an increased risk of unauthorised employee absence. To minimise unauthorised absences, you could make it clear to employees that absences without authorisation will not be paid.

Where you have a Sickness and Absence Policy that provides for return to work interviews, you should remind employees that a return to work interview will be carried out for any period of sickness absence. This may prevent employees pretending to be sick so that they can watch events or recover from a post-event hangover. If this is not already stated in your Sickness and Absence Policy you should consider its implementation. If you do not have a Sickness and Absence Policy, the Simply-Docs Sickness & Absence Policy is available to download.

There is a greater risk of employees being drunk or hungover at work during this period, so it is wise to remind employees of your Drugs and Alcohol Policies. If you do not have such policies in place, why not download the Simply-Docs Drugs and Alcohol Policies?

Flexible Working and Annual Leave Arrangements
You may wish to allow your employees to work flexibly around event times as this would minimise the reduction in productivity. If this is implemented, remember that flexitime should be available to staff for other sporting events, and for other reasons such as childcare arrangements. Don’t allow too much time to accrue as this time will need to be made up by employees.

You could encourage employees to take days or half days off as annual leave and relax the cap on the number of employees allowed on holiday at once. This way absence levels will be known in advance and the decrease in productivity can be managed.

Simply-Docs has a suite of templates to help you manage staffing levels during the Olympic and Paralympic period. The Memo To Employees explains working arrangements during this period and may be accompanied by the Short Notice Period Annual Leave (Holiday) / Flexible Working Request Form for employees to fill out when they want to take annual leave or work flexibly to watch the Olympics. Our bespoke Management Form allows employers to easily see who is taking holiday or working flexibly during the period. Employers can ensure that there are sufficient staff in the office and that those who request flexible working have made up the time missed while watching events.

Show Key Events in the Workplace
How about having a screen showing the events in a canteen or communal area? This is a good way to boost staff morale. However, you must ensure that you have a licence for the premises to allow for this facility. A TV licence is also required if staff watch events which are streamed live on the internet. There should also be event-free zones for those who are not supporters. If you cannot show events at work, you could temporarily relax your Internet Policy to allow employees to follow them. You should clarify that this will operate on a discretionary basis for the duration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2024 period only, that employees should not use illegal means (e.g. pirated streaming) to view events, and that any abuse of the privilege will mean that it will be withdrawn.

Other Legal Issues to Consider
Employers should consider possible legal pitfalls when offering perks to employees.

Example 1: If an employer grants holiday to Olympics fans, who happen to be predominantly male, around the Olympic/Paralympic period, female employees who were turned down for holiday during the same period could bring a claim of sex discrimination.

Example 2: For many employees, the Team GB events will be their key focus during this period, but some employees will have different national loyalties. In this context, national ‘banter’ has the potential to stray into something more problematic. For instance, where an employer allows employees to wear their team’s shirts and an employee makes racial slurs against a colleague supporting another country, issues of racial discrimination or harassment could arise.

In circumstances such as those in Example 2, employers may be held liable for acts of discrimination carried out by employees in the course of their employment, unless they can show that they have taken reasonable steps to prevent their employees from acting unlawfully. An element of taking reasonable steps is to ensure that you have an Equality and Diversity Policy and a Disciplinary Policy in place.

If you don’t have them in place, Simply-Docs provides both an Equality and Diversity Policy and a Disciplinary Policy. Employers should make employees aware that cases of racial discrimination or harassment will be dealt with under their Disciplinary Policy.

If you plan and apply policies fairly, the Olympic and Paralympic 2024 period can be an opportunity to increase goodwill among employees, while still managing staff absence successfully.