Super Bowl Flu

BLR_Sdean

Do you see a higher rate of absenteeism and presenteeism on the Monday after the Super Bowl? Does it depend on whether the local team is playing in the game? In 2005, Kronos estimated that about 1.4 million employed U.S. adults could call in sick to work the day after that year's
Super Bowl.  By the way, for this week's HR Strange but True!, we are considering a story about an effort to get the Monday after Super Bowl declared a national holiday.

CTCarter

Well, I can't speak to having a local team playing in the Super Bowl (since the Detroit Lions have never been!) but I can say that in general, the impact is pretty moderate.  Fortunately, the game doesn't seem to impact our rate of absenteeism.  Is the collective energy of our staff a little lower than usual (presenteeism)? Probably by a little.

 On the topic of whether it should or shouldn't be its own holiday, there is an article in the Buffalo News called "Some firms have declared today a Super Bowl holiday" including employers from Indianapolis and Chicago who gave workers time off for the game: http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20070205/1023716.asp

While I don't know if it would ever get declared a national holiday, common sense dictates some sort of change. Why not move the Super Bowl to Saturday night and eliminate the problem instead of a lost work day? Or just move the game time up to 3PM instead of 630?  People are partying all day anyway--at least this way they'd get home sooner to sleep it off!

kyliefan

It's reached the point with the Super Bowl that asking people to come in to work day after is just like scheduling them to work on January 1. We have a young workforce, and from all I've overheard, they approach Super Bowl weekend just like New Year's Eve (football fans or not).  It definitely has an impact, as evidenced by yesterday. A few no-shows, some tardiness and a marked listlessness among much of the staff who were present.

I'm all for making it a day off for everyone!

GoPatsNH

I don't think that it depends on whether your local team is playing.  The Super Bowl is one of the most-watched television events of the year (and a great excuse to have a party on a Sunday night) so I think it's safe to assume that most employees will be dragging the next day, whether they are football fans or not. 

fisHRman

The Super Bowl is on a Sunday.  We have more problems with March Madness, when productivity goes down hill. There are more teams that people are interested in because they went to different colleges or are from different parts of the country.  A lot of the games are on during the day on workdays (and people are listening online or go out to their cars to listen), and the conversations (especially about the how individuals are doing in the pool ) drag on for days.