Love it or hate it… the Euros is nearly upon us; but how do you navigate employee issues during this time?

Our household is getting very excited (/ nervous) about the upcoming Euros. I become a football widow, and the TV becomes a constant stream of any and all football matches during these tournaments. Whilst I do enjoy watching England, I can’t say I particularly enjoy the other matches!

There may be a few sore heads (and more people deciding to work from home!) on Monday morning after England’s first match on Sunday night.

The Euros is a great opportunity for employee engagement and for employers to show appreciation for employees by allowing flexibility or even organising time together watching the matches, but, as always you need to be careful you don’t fall foul of any employment law issues during this time (sorry, the fun police are here!).

Sweepstakes

Many offices will set up a sweepstake, but this is a type of lottery so you need to ensure that you don’t breach the regulations as setting up an illegal lottery could lead to a fine of up to ￡5,000 or even jail time!

To ensure you’re compliant with the legislation, you need to ensure that the sweepstake is done physically in the business premises, you can’t do this remotely or with employees who work from home, to participate, they need to physically attend the office to be able to take part in the draw. All the participants must work in the same office, the advertisement for the sweepstake must only be done on work premises, and there must be a winner.

Make sure your employees know these rules and stick to them to avoid landing yourself in hot water! (Oh – and if you do partake – good luck!)

Requests for time off/ last minute “sickness” absence?

Most matches have a kick off time of 8pm, so whilst you probably won’t be facing requests for early finishes (unless you have different shift patterns), there are most probably going to be some late nights, so it won’t be surprising for employees to either call in sick in the next day, or simply not show up for work the following day. Or, if they are on shift that clashes with a match time, again, they may call in sick or not turn up, instead deciding to watch the match.

If this happens, you need to follow your policy, try not to jump to conclusions without any clear evidence, and try to instead gather evidence and speak to the employee in question to get their side of the story.

As always, each case will need to be considered individually, please get in touch with us if you need help with any absence cases during this time.

If you have a lot of annual leave requests, or requests for early finishes, then make sure you have a plan as to how you are going to deal with that, maybe on a first come first served basis?

Football team rivalry

As with anything, you are going to have employees who support different teams, and it is important to not just prioritise the England games, if you are thinking about showing games, make sure you include all matches, so that no nationalities are left out. Remember: whilst being a football fan isn’t itself a protected characteristic, you could risk claims of race discrimination if you ignore other nationalities.

A bit of friendly rivalry is absolutely fine, but you may want to send a message out to employees to remind them of your expectations during this time to try to avoid any grievances or complaints of discriminatory treatment.

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We hope that by preparing ahead of time, this will mean that the Euros don’t offer too much disruption to your business, but as always, we are here to help if you do run into any issues… and fingers crossed,

It’s coming home!

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