The
findings of an online European poll suggests that the disruption caused by the
World Cup will not be as bad as widely anticipated.
A
survey, by careers website Monster, has revealed that only 26 per cent of the
European workforce plan to miss work and watch this summer’s tournament.
Of
the 11,516 workers questioned across the continent, 61 per cent said they were
not interested enough to take time off work and had no plans to watch games on
big screens in the office.
The
overriding message was World Cup apathy, with only one in four staff admitting
they planned to miss work by either taking holiday or throwing a sickie.
Fourteen
per cent of respondents had taken pre-booked holiday to watch the games and 12
per cent said they would miss work unofficially over this period.
However,
Jeremy Caplin, of Monster Europe, warned that the indifference might start to
fade depending on the success of each country. He advised firms to be flexible
or risk absenteeism: "I have a feeling that the closer a team gets to the
final, the higher the number of sickies will be in that country. The results
also seem to indicate that Europeans are far more likely to pull sickies if
they cannot watch the matches at work. It might benefit employers to take an
enlightened or realistic view to football fever," he said.
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