The England 1am World Cup match against Mexico has forced a sharp divide among UK employers, with a handful of progressive bosses offering later starts or full days off while most workplaces prepare for business as usual on Monday morning.
Kick-off at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City is scheduled for 1am BST. The late hour has put employers in an uncomfortable position: penalise staff for staying up, or absorb a slower Monday in exchange for goodwill.
The bosses offering flexibility after England’s 1am World Cup match
Joshua Elash, who co-founded MT Finance Group in 2008, is among the more generous. His London-based property finance firm normally requires all 125 employees in the office by 08:45 or 09:00. On Monday, the doors open at 11:00.
‘It wasn’t a dilemma at all. This was as close to a no-brainer as a business can get,’ Elash says. He and senior managers intend to stay up for the match, and he sees no case for a different standard applying to colleagues.
‘Some things are more important than, you know, a day’s revenue,’ he adds.
Kevin Craig, chief executive of communications agency PLMR, has extended a 12:00 start to around 100 employees across offices in London, Coventry, Birmingham and Ipswich. ‘These days are special,’ he says simply.
MadeByShape, a Manchester digital marketing firm with 21 staff, has gone further and given the day off entirely, provided work is on track and client meetings are rescheduled. Co-founder Andy Golpys frames the calculation bluntly: ‘As long as the work gets done, it doesn’t really matter whether you work that day or catch up the next.’
Octopus Energy is allowing engineers to begin home visits a couple of hours late, while office and home-based customer staff can start and finish later. Chief executive Greg Jackson says gaps will be covered by colleagues in Bosnia and South Africa. Those who do come in early will be rewarded with snacks.
Most employers will not be so accommodating
For every boss offering a lie-in, there are rather more who cannot or will not. Sainsbury’s and Aldi say Monday is business as usual in their stores. Nissan is making no changes at its UK plant.
The British Chambers of Commerce points to manufacturing production lines, frontline retail and hospitality as sectors where flexibility will be hardest to arrange. Kate Shoesmith, the organisation’s director of policy, acknowledges that ‘there will be some jobs, such as shift work, where it won’t be possible.’
The TUC, which represents trade unions across the UK, is calling for ‘common sense and understanding.’ Its assistant general secretary Kate Bell says the match ‘will have implications for workers across the country’ and urges employers to consider later starts, home working, or hour-swapping where feasible. ‘It won’t be possible for everyone, but we do know that where employers make that extra effort to show flexibility to their employees, people really appreciate it,’ she says.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) urged organisations to agree any flexible arrangements in advance, arguing that pre-agreed arrangements are the most effective way to minimise disruption at the start of the working week.
John Palmer, a senior adviser at conciliation service Acas, adds a note of fairness: employers must treat requests consistently, bearing in mind that Mexico supporters will be in the workforce too.
The legal position is clearer than you might expect
Michelle Last, a partner at Keystone Law, is direct on the statutory position: employees have no automatic right to short-notice annual leave to watch a football match, nor to recover from watching one. Employers who refuse are within their rights.
That said, Last suggests a degree of commercial pragmatism. Refusing leave risks staff calling in sick or arriving exhausted and unproductive. Her advice: ‘Employers might sensibly proactively encourage employees to apply to take annual leave in anticipation of the match.’
Alison Loveday of LLM Solicitors echoes the point, suggesting unpaid or annual leave ‘may generate some goodwill and is likely to be preferable to insisting employees come in.’
The weather question briefly made all of this moot. Reports on Friday suggested the 01:00 kick-off might be brought forward by six hours after storms disrupted an earlier match at the Estadio Azteca, where thunder and lightning had already delayed Mexico’s round-of-32 tie against Ecuador. Fifa considered rescheduling but confirmed the original time would stand hours later.
So the late-night gamble is on. The employers who have chosen generosity are betting that morale, loyalty and culture are worth more than one slow Monday. The ones who have not are betting their staff will manage. England’s performance will determine which group looks wiser by Tuesday morning.
