With the Euros coming up in June, HR teams need to get ready for a surge of leave requests, as football fans will want to take time off to watch the matches.

We also know from other major sporting events, like the World Cup, Wimbledon and the Ashes, staff are much more likely to pull a sickie or come down with a mystery illness rather than miss out.

How HR teams can prepare for big sporting events

Mark big sporting events on your calendar

It’s always a good idea to know when big sporting events are happening, as it is always difficult to get temporary cover during big sporting events.

A great tool that you have up your sleeve, is reporting. You can check how many people were off last time, who was off, so you can prepare in advance for people pulling a last minute sickie.

Play fair

For big sporting events, if you get tons of leave requests, it’s not going to be possible to approve leave for everyone. You could compromise and set up a big screen for staff to keep an eye on the biggest matches, so they don’t take the whole day off. It’s important to note that not all staff will be taking time off to watch sport, they could have another valid reason, it just coincides at the same time. So, you’ll need to judge each request individually.

Communicate with your teams

Quite often staff don’t realise the impact they will have by ‘pulling a sickie’. Speak to your teams and encourage them to book annual leave in advance, rather than taking an unexpected sick day.

Offer flexible working

Allowing staff to start or finish earlier, or swap shifts with someone else not interested in watching the football live, they’ll be less likely to fake a sickness bug. Allowing employees to make the time up, rather than taking a full day’s leave, will reduce the amount of absences.

How LeavePlanner can help

LeavePlanner makes it easy for SMEs to monitor staff absences. It has a real-time reporting functionality, so you can learn from previous staff behaviour and maintain the correct staffing levels.

It’s simple to manage shift timetables to organise cover staff, so you are not left short-staffed, or arrange flexible working so your staff can change their hours to watch the match.

Arrange your free trial today. For easy-to-use absence management software, call Steve on 01252 636 070 or email support@leaveplanner.com.

Pssst! Check out our new all-in-one system, HR Planner, which incorporates an easy-to-use leave management solution, designed specifically with SMEs in mind.