News & Updates

The 2012 Olympics will be an exciting time for the UK. It may also cause disruption for businesses that are unprepared. One prominent official compared the potential disruption with the disruption caused during severe weather, "London grinds to a halt when we have snow. The Olympics will be like having eight weeks of snow." Are businesses prepared for this level of disruption? There is likely to be a high demand for holiday during the period of the Olympic Games due to employees wanting to take leave to watch events, some may have booked tickets for the events too. In addition employees will wish to take their normal summer holiday.

How do you deal with the issue of employees wanting to take time off at the same time? How do you manage employees who are "sick" during the Olympics? These and other frequently asked questions are considered below.

How do you deal with employees wanting to take time off at the same time?

Decide early on how requests for holiday during the Olympic period will be approved and ensure that your approach is fair and consistent. For example, you may decide on a first come, first served basis coupled with a cap on the number of individuals who are allowed to take holiday at the same time. You will need to ensure that the business is clear in communicating what the minimum staffing requirements will be during the period so that one department won’t find itself without any members of staff.

You may decide to take a more proactive approach by asking your employees to announce their interest in the Olympics and if they wish to take some holiday during the Olympics to register their holiday request by a certain date. This way your managers will have plenty of notice of level of interest in taking holiday during the Olympics and can plan their work and resource accordingly.

You may decide to take a more dictatorial approach and, giving the required amount of notice, inform your employee when they will take their holiday.

Ensure that you communicate your company’s policy on how to book time off as this will make it easier to manage and reduce the likelihood of unauthorised absence. Include in your communication the company’s expectations of your employees during the period of the games in terms of attendance. You may decide to be flexible in terms of start and finish times so that employees can watch some of the games during their working day.

Yes you can refuse a holiday request. The employer must provide the employee with notice equivalent to the period of leave requested. Requests should be turned down in good faith and on reasonable grounds, so for example, if too many people had requested the same period of holiday at the same time. If a request is not approved, the employee must be permitted to take their holiday at a later date during the leave year.

Your decision on whether to refuse requests for holiday during the Olympics should be balanced with the risk of creating resentment and low morale. For those employees who are really keen supporters of the Olympics, remember that they may never get the chance to go to the Olympics again.

A review of your absence management policies would be prudent to ensure that it covers the procedure your employees must follow if they are absent from work. It should explain when and how your employees must inform their manager of their absence and it should outline the sanctions if the company has reasonable grounds for believing the reasons are not genuine or justified. This will provide you with the basis for how you manage absence.

If, following a thorough investigation, the company has reason to believe that the sickness was not genuine then it may decide to manage this through their disciplinary procedure. Once the hearing has been adjourned to consider the case, the company may decide to issue an appropriate sanction for example a written or final written warning.

If an employee is absent from work and does not follow the required notification procedure, the absence may be treated as unauthorised. Again, the company should then follow their disciplinary procedure. The unauthorised absence is usually treated as misconduct and should be investigated and the employee attend a hearing to state their case. The company then considers what sanction (i.e. a written warning) if any, is appropriate in the circumstances.

If your business does not have an absence management policy or a disciplinary policy then please contact us and we can provide these for your business.