Raphael John-Lall

The Olympics, the World Cup, the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) as well as oth­er ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al sports events can im­pact pro­duc­tiv­i­ty neg­a­tive­ly in the busi­ness and cor­po­rate world.

Pres­i­dent of the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT) Cavelle Joseph - St. Omer shared this view with the Busi­ness Guardian and gave greater de­tails on how busi­ness­es can suf­fer loss­es.

The Olympics which end­ed last Sun­day in Paris raised the de­bate world­wide on whether the games dis­tract­ed em­ploy­ees, lead­ing to a re­duc­tion in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty that cost busi­ness­es mon­ey or if the games were ac­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial.

Based on a study by Chal­lenger, Gray & Christ­mas, an out­place­ment firm based in Chica­go, US em­ploy­ers could have lost up to US$2.6 bil­lion in lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty as Olympics-en­thralled em­ploy­ees di­vid­ed their at­ten­tion be­tween work re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and the live broad­casts of the sports spec­ta­cle.

A study done be­fore the Olympics from the UKG Work­force In­sti­tute (con­duct­ed by the Har­ris Poll), showed that 59 per cent of em­ployed Amer­i­cans planned to watch the Sum­mer Olympics this year, and more than a third planned to watch live.

More than a quar­ter said they would be “less pro­duc­tive at work” as a re­sult.

UK Hu­man Re­source pub­li­ca­tion “HR Mag­a­zine” took a more pos­i­tive stance on the is­sue and in their Au­gust 8 is­sue pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion that 61 per cent of em­ploy­ees re­port­ed that the 2024 sum­mer Olympics had in­spired them to de­liv­er more cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive work.

The sur­vey of 2,000 UK em­ploy­ees re­vealed that 42 per cent of em­ploy­ees be­lieved the Olympics boost­ed over­all pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the work­place.

De­cline in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty

Joseph-St. Omer said em­ploy­ees view­ing ma­jor sports events can dis­tract and lead to ex­tend­ed ab­sences from the work­place.

“There are hard­ly any com­pa­nies across the world, far less giv­en our unique cul­ture here in T&T, that are not af­fect­ed by ma­jor sports events. Be it the Olympics that hap­pened in France, the World Cup or the IPL in In­dia, these events re­sult in sud­den ‘sick’ leaves, work from home re­quests and long lunch/can­teen breaks (es­pe­cial­ly if the said breaks hap­pen to have a large screen TV). This def­i­nite­ly has an im­pact on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy and in some cas­es may even af­fect the qual­i­ty of ser­vice.”

She ad­vis­es em­ploy­ers and busi­ness own­ers to get around the prob­lem by ac­com­mo­dat­ing em­ploy­ees based on the in­dus­try.

“As far as sports events go, noth­ing to me can beat the FI­FA World Cup. I dare­say even the Olympic Games does not com­mand the same kind of ded­i­cat­ed view­er­ship. This nat­u­ral­ly re­sults in a drop in em­ploy­ee ef­fi­cien­cy, since many peo­ple ei­ther skip work or take long breaks to watch World Cup match­es, at the of­fice or in bars, or at home.

“You ask why; the re­al­i­ty is that the World Cup or Olympic Games are al­ways a huge source of na­tion­al pride, and some of the mar­quis events are of­ten sched­uled to take place dur­ing tra­di­tion­al work hours. I am of the opin­ion that if some em­ploy­ers, de­pend­ing on the na­ture of the op­er­a­tions/in­dus­try, can find a way to build some good­will by al­low­ing em­ploy­ees to take a short break to watch an an­tic­i­pat­ed race or event, it may be a small in­vest­ment that will serve them well in the long term.”

She added that be­ing dis­tract­ed dur­ing ma­jor sports events like the Olympics is just part of a wider pat­tern of em­ploy­ees be­ing dis­tract­ed dur­ing work­ing hours.

“A lot of peo­ple throw a lot of blame at the Olympics and World Cu, for a drop in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, be­cause in some cas­es em­ploy­ees can watch their favourite teams or their coun­try com­pete on their own or join com­pa­ny-host­ed view­ing par­ties. The re­al­i­ty is, how­ev­er, that YouTube, email and What­sAp­ping cost more in lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty than World Cup or Olympics, which come around once every four years could ever hope. If we are to be hon­est, peo­ple will al­ways use these plat­forms, to keep abreast of the scores or to watch the games one way or the oth­er. It would be naïve to think that work­ers are not in­ter­est­ed. This is in fact what we call in HR, ‘Pre­sen­teeism’; em­ploy­ees who show up for work but whose at­ten­tion is not fo­cused on the job; and this is an ex­pect­ed side-ef­fect of the Olympics and oth­er ma­jor sport­ing events.”

She al­so spoke about the prob­lem of ab­sen­teeism when big sport games are hap­pen­ing which is a “peren­ni­al headache” for HR prac­ti­tion­ers and busi­ness own­ers.

“Nav­i­gat­ing these is­sues re­quires a bal­ance be­tween ac­com­mo­dat­ing em­ploy­ees’ in­ter­ests in sports and en­sur­ing that busi­ness op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue smooth­ly. It is im­por­tant to have clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, con­sis­tent em­ploy­ment poli­cies and let staff know well in ad­vance what is ex­pect­ed are key to ad­dress­ing these chal­lenges ef­fec­tive­ly.”

Work comes first

Joseph-St. Omer warned em­ploy­ees not to “throw their pro­fes­sion­al­ism” out the door by be­ing dis­tract­ed by ma­jor sports events.

“Ab­sen­teeism is the big is­sue for Olympics and World Cup and oth­er ma­jor sport­ing events. Some­times, these games do clash with our work com­mit­ments. The re­al­i­ty is, the work comes first and em­ploy­ees should seek guid­ance from their man­agers be­fore they throw their pro­fes­sion­al­ism out of the door and do the fun thing, like go to the sports bar, or stay at home. They are al­so risk­ing pulling fake sick days to watch the games/match­es and once caught, this can have se­ri­ous con­se­quences. Low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is al­ways an is­sue in most sec­tors dur­ing this time. But em­ploy­ers al­so have to re­mem­ber, that even if you fill your of­fices on match days, there’s no guar­an­tee your peo­ple won’t be dis­en­gaged and un­pro­duc­tive. Whether it’s a lack of avail­able staff, or just low morale, it all comes down to lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.”

Draw­ing an anal­o­gy with the world of sports, she ad­vised busi­ness own­ers and cor­po­rate man­agers to de­vel­op a strat­e­gy on how to com­mu­ni­cate with em­ploy­ees.

“My ad­vice for em­ploy­ers is to be like any good sports man­ag­er or coach; get your tac­tics right in ad­vance, clear­ly ex­plain them to your team, have good com­mu­ni­ca­tion so every­one knows what part they have to play and hope­ful­ly the re­sults will be good for the busi­ness. In a nut­shell, this is a good time to re­view your or­gan­i­sa­tion’s poli­cies and make sure your em­ploy­ees are aware of them. Hav­ing a clear pol­i­cy in place for sport­ing events will man­age ex­pec­ta­tions from the out­set and pre-empt any is­sues.”

She said a work­place pol­i­cy will in­form staff of any ex­cep­tions to usu­al work­ing prac­tices and help to de­fine the pa­ra­me­ters for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion if staff do not com­ply.

“Al­so, once es­tab­lished, that pol­i­cy can be used for oth­er events. Busi­ness own­ers in­volved in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty or en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors might need to man­age in­creased de­mand dur­ing the Olympics or World Cup, po­ten­tial­ly lead­ing to is­sues re­lat­ed to over­time pay, work­ing reg­u­la­tions, and em­ploy­ee fa­tigue. These sec­tors do ex­pe­ri­ence a boost in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and like­wise need to ex­am­ine poli­cies that has im­pli­ca­tions for that spike in de­mand,” said Joseph-St. Omer.