With the World Cup finals in the USA now well under way, HR experts are continuing to warn organisations over the potential for workplace disruption because of absences and ‘banter’.

Lisa Patmore, employment partner at Dorsey & Whitney, warned that many employees were now shaping their schedules according to the football schedule rather than by their normal working hours. She said that although England’s match with Croatia started at a “relatively civilised” 9pm, the celebrations after the match including the liberal consumption of alcohol will have caused problems the following morning.

She referred to the matches being a “difficult mix for employers – particularly where absence or lateness affects productivity, service delivery or colleagues who are left to pick up the slack” and added that employers also needed to factor in recent changes to statutory sick pay, which mean workers are entitled to SSP from day one of absence, “which may have previously been a deterrent to missing work”.

Patmore advised employers to communicate expectations clearly and avoid knee-jerk reactions if someone calls in sick after a match, even where their social media showed they’d been posting all night.

“Employers must treat any reported sickness as genuine unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise. Failing to do so may risk claims for unfair dismissal or discrimination,” she said.

“What’s more, in the age of social media, lines are increasingly blurred. Sickness after a busy night of posting may look suspicious and could give an employer grounds to ask questions, but it’s not a free pass to take disciplinary action. Posts need to be considered in context: timestamps aren’t always watertight and snooping on private accounts can raise its own privacy issues – potentially backfiring on the employer.”

For Stephanie Davies, CEO of L&D company Laughology, football banter was a source of some workplace issues. She referred to research commissioned by her firm that found over half of UK workers say workplace banter feels riskier now than it used to and more than four in 10 employees feel football banter at work is riskier. Davies, a behaviour psychologist, said that rather than letting disappointment or dodgy jokes cause tension, employers should embrace how football gives workplaces a “brilliant opportunity to create laughter, connection and perspective”.

She said: “The difficulty with workplace banter today is that we can have five generations working together, all with different views on what is and isn’t acceptable humour. That doesn’t mean we should immediately call people out and berate them when something goes wrong. Instead, we should ‘call people in’ by helping them understand why something might now be considered offensive. It’s also important to remember that workplace rules have changed. Even if two people are comfortable with a particular joke, someone who overhears it may be offended and can raise a complaint, making it the organisation’s responsibility to address.”

She referred to a firm that had received a complaint from an employee who overheard a colleague referring to supporters of the team he supported as “manky-mob and knuckledraggers”. Another had “manky-mob” shouted at him when he walked in to a room. Both terms are used by Celtic and Rangers fans and were seen as highly offensive, she said, because of the intense political and religious tensions between the clubs. Davies said she had also worked with a client where an employee took offence when colleagues supporting a rival team sent them jokey football memes.

Davies added: “I’m a huge advocate of humour because it is the social glue that brings people together. However, there are some clear rules. If someone asks you to stop, you need to stop immediately and understand why it caused offence. If you carry on, it’s no longer banter, it’s bullying. The same applies if the humour involves punching down, exploiting a power imbalance, targeting a protected characteristic or focusing on an individual’s personal traits.”

 

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