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World Cup Sickies

ended 06. May 2026

The World Cup kicks off next month and, as sure as eggs is eggs, staff will be pulling sickies left, right and centre as a mystery non-seasonal noravirus ravages the country. As a business owner, are you planning to be more lenient this summer with staff, potentially as a way to boost morale, or will you be doing it by the book? And if you're an HR, what's your advice to business owners ahead of the tournament? How and when should they set out their policies regarding the World Cup? Should they roll with it and secure some goodwill from their employees or firmly lay down the rules and have a zero-tolerance policy in terms of sickies?

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Samuel Mather-Holgate
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
With the World Cup starting in six weeks, pretending football won’t affect attendance is fantasy, but so is giving staff a free pass. Employers need clear rules with a bit of common sense. Set expectations now, not the night before England kick off! Staff need reminding that just not turning up is unacceptable, but also that practical flexibility such as shift swaps, approved leave, later starts after big evening games or watching key matches together where the business can support it are considered. A zero tolerance approach can feel heavy-handed, but total leniency is an open goal for abuse. The best policy is simple, make it clear that honesty will get a better reception than a mystery 24 hour bug after a penalty shootout.
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Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
World Cup sickies are a workplace culture story before they are a productivity story. If people feel they have to game the system to watch a match, the process has already failed somewhere.

The lazy response is to reach for monitoring tools and absence analytics. In AI Audits, we see why that backfires: automate suspicion and you create more distrust, more edge cases, and more pressure on managers who still need to use judgement.

A better employer designs for reality. Set clear expectations, use flexible rotas where possible, and keep humans in charge of exceptions. Technology can help spot patterns, but it should not become a referee for basic trust. If your culture needs surveillance to survive a football match, the tool is not the problem. The organisations that handle this well will be the ones that plan openly instead of pretending human behaviour disappears during a major event.