According to a recent survey by BT, nearly a third of organisations don't have any plans for dealing with the possible disruption that this summer's Olympic games may cause to their businesses, even though most of those surveyed expect to be affected. Disruption could include staff absence, travel difficulties, and requests to volunteer to be "game masters."
If your business is based in London then you can expect the trains and tubes to be extra busy, which may mean delays for your staff in getting to work. The situation has been likened to the travel disruptions caused by the snow in the winters of 2010 and 2009, when buses were stuck in their depots and planes were grounded at Heathrow. You would be well-advised to plan now for temporary flexible working arrangements for the duration of the games. And even if you are not in London, there will be other parts of the country affected by travel disruption at certain times, for example, the cycle races through Surrey in late July/early August will cause significant difficulties to local employers on account of road closures.
Even if your business is not close to any Olympic venues or events, how are you going to deal with requests for time off to watch the most popular events? You may want to keep it simple, with a "first come, first served" approach to requests for annual leave, or you may decide to deal with conflicting requests on a "lottery" basis to give everybody a fair chance of getting time off when they want it. Alternatively, you could consider making arrangements for screening popular events during working hours on the premises, via a television or internet connection - that might be more palatable and manageable than having to discipline staff who watch events surreptitiously on their company computers. But be careful of setting up resentment on the part of those who are not interested in sport, and might perceive such treatment as favouritism. Requiring people to make up any time lost over the course of the next few weeks may be a fair way round that. Think about how you dealt with requests to watch World Cup matches in previous years, and apply any lessons learned.
Volunteers have no legal right to take time off, and you are not under any obligation to pay them, so it is up to you to determine whether to grant paid or unpaid time off, or to insist that they take it out of their holiday entitlement, or whether to refuse permission altogether - although the latter option would not win you many friends and you might find yourself investigating dubious "sickness" absences instead. Better to take a more conciliatory approach, perhaps.
Again, you may put an upper limit on the number of days off you will grant for volunteering, so as to be fair to all concerned, and to show that you are taking a balanced approach. If you have more volunteers than you can let go at any one time, then you will have to decide who will be permitted to take the time off and who will not; the key thing here is to set your policy in advance and publicise it, so that everybody knows where they stand.
On the other hand, think about the potential benefits to you of allowing your staff to volunteer - in terms of developing their skills, supporting the community, and being seen as an employer with a social conscience. A generous approach should also win you valuable goodwill from your employees, which will be beneficial to you when you need them to go the extra mile on your behalf!
So, as with most situations, forward planning, good communication, and a generous dollop of common sense, will be the best recipe for a Gold Medal!
For more information about planning for the impact of the Olympics, or any other HR topics, look at the full range of services available from M Thorne Consulting Limited, your friendly, flexible HR consultancy. Check out http://mthorneconsulting.co.uk or contact Mara Thorne on mara@mthorneconsulting.co.uk.
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