Idea 20 - How to keep your team happy when they want to watch a football match

If you can’t beat them, join them.

Imagine your favourite sports team is playing their most important match in a generation at the same time as you’re supposed to be in a team meeting. 

What should you do? 

And if you’re a boss, how do you handle your team when they’re clearly checking the latest scores on their phones when they should be working?

This evening, Euro 24 kicks off (for the American readers of this blog, that’s the European Soccer Championship - it’s a big deal for many people). Then we’ve got the US Open golf, Wimbledon, The Cricket World Cup, and The Olympics. Plenty of distractions for all those sports fans that have to go to work when the sport is on TV.

Now, I haven’t been able to find any scientific research on the effect of sporting events on employee happiness or performance, but I think we can all agree that stopping a football fan from watching a football match is not going to make them happy. At the same time, letting them watch or listen to the match while they’re writing a report is probably not great for productivity either. 

So what can you do?

Years ago, I was a teacher in Spain, and in Spain everyone is totally obsessed with football. One year, the World Cup was on in the school term, and the matches were being shown during the school day. We faced a small dilemma: should we let the kids watch the matches or not? Our director wasn’t a big football fan, so when the first match came on, he told everyone just to teach classes as normal. “It’s only a football match,” he said. 

His decision didn’t really go down that well though and the students displayed their disagreement with some quite inventive silent protests.  During the first match, I caught one watching it on his computer during their IT lesson, another skipped class and hid in the toilet for 90 minutes, and one long-haired student listened to the entire match through headphones hidden under his hair and passed messages around the class when a goal was scored. Needless to say, none of the rest of the class did any useful work either.

For the second match, the director gave in. He cancelled classes in the afternoon and set up a big screen in the gym. The kids who wanted to watch the match had an unforgettable afternoon, and those who didn’t got an extra 90-minute break. Everyone was happy.

Our gym looked a bit like this

So, what should you do in the office?

Firstly, people are going to watch the matches whether you like it or not, and while they’re watching, they’re not going to produce their best work, so don’t try to fight it.

Secondly, on the other hand, many people won’t be bothered at all by the sport, so remember them too. It always used to annoy me that smokers got more breaks than non-smokers, so treat everyone equally.

According to all the HR advice columns, they say you should offer your team flextime, so they can adapt their schedules around the sport. Some say, if the event is big enough, you should organise something special.

What do I think? I look at the science around what makes people happy and see what that says.

According to the research

1. People like a good work / life balance.

2. People like to feel they have autonomy over when they should work.

3. People don’t like to be treated unfairly compared to their colleagues.

4. People like to enjoy events in groups.

5. People do like a bit of fun occasionally.

So, this year, when Andy Murray (British tennis player) gets to the Wimbledon semi-final and his match is at 1pm on a Friday afternoon, don't schedule an all staff meeting. And if you’re going to set up a big screen and give half the team time off to watch it, treat the non-tennis fans the same way and let them do what they want.

Enjoy the sport this summer, and if you don’t like sport enjoy the empty parks and offices.