In a recent poll The HR Dept asked
employers if they thought workplace absence would increase during the UK’s
‘Summer of Sport’ and whether they had a plan in place to deal with this.
We can now reveal that 42% of
respondents expected workplace absence to increase during the summer due to the
Olympics and Euro 2012. That is not surprising perhaps, but of these
respondents, a further 47% said they did not have a plan to deal with unauthorised
absences. British employers need to get to grips with managing all those
employees who come knocking on the door asking to leave early to watch this
summer’s sporting events.
Simon Morgan, Director of The HR Dept
[South East London and North Kent] comments: “We do not advocate creating a
policy for the sake of creating a policy. Employers should use existing
policies and procedures for dealing with holiday requests, other absences and
so on. It would be useful to have an IT/social media policy to reduce the risk
of employees misusing the internet to live stream sporting events while they
are meant to be working. If employers are concerned that their
policies/procedures do not cover all possible scenarios, then The HR Dept would
be more than happy to help.”
Employers should not accuse their
employees of pulling a ‘sickie’ without reasonable evidence (seeing one of your
‘sick’ employees appear in TV coverage would be evidence enough!)
Here are our top three excuses from
employees and what employers have interpreted them as:
Employee: [Monday morning] I can’t come into work today as
I have come down with food poisoning.
Employer: Probably too much alcohol rather than bad prawns!
Employee: [Friday] My child is unwell and there’s no one else
to look after him/her.
Employer: Looks like they want a head start to their weekend.
Employee: I have to go to my Gran’s funeral.
Employer: Again? How many grandmothers can one person have?
If you would like some advice on
managing holiday and unauthorised absence, speak to The HR Dept. We specialise
in advising small and medium sized businesses on all employment issues.
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