Few things unite the nation better than an international football tournament. Chief among them is success at an international football tournament. And after England’s dizzying victory against Ukraine, watched live by 26 million Britons on Saturday night, that is the unlikely position England finds itself in.
With football fever building ahead of Wednesday’s semi-final with Denmark, bosses up and down the nation face a dilemma over how to deal with the event. While most workers will have clocked off by the 8pm kick-off time, millions of others will just be beginning their shift. Britain’s late-night workforce is now estimated to be 3.2 million strong, meaning one in nine of us now works into the small hours.
So should bosses treat Wednesday night as business as usual? Or do they need to take a more relaxed view of the occasion, which many employees may see as akin to a national holiday.
A clue to the answer might be found in the decision by the dating app Bumble last month to give all its staff an entire week off – to combat burn-out in the workplace. In a memo which made business headlines around the world, Bumble’s 31-year-old CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told the tech firm’s 700 staff to use the time off to concentrate on ‘themselves’. It was recognition perhaps of the toll the pandemic has placed on staff wellbeing.
The World Health Organisation defines burn-out as an occupational phenomenon caused by “chronic workplace stress” and leading to feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy. With millions working remotely, the division between home and office has suddenly become blurred, and many people are now working more hours than ever before.
The risk of burn-out, as a result, has never been greater. Young bankers at Goldman Sachs complained recently they were working 95 hours a week – and sleeping just five hours a night.
Even long before Covid emerged, there was mounting evidence that many of us had allowed work to take over our lives. It wasn’t just newbies feeling the strain either. In 2011, the then Lloyds Banking Group chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio announced he was taking leave of absence after prolonged insomnia led to exhaustion.
On his return he declared the banking giant would be undertaking a re-evaluation of the importance of mental health.
So Ms Wolfe – who recently rang the Nasdaq bell with her infant son alongside her as she took her company public – might be onto something when she says it is now time to reclaim our work/life balance. As the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, it would be foolish to dismiss her recent perk for staff as woolly thinking, or just another gimmick. Yes, there are some who will argue that wellbeing can’t be measured by money or traded in markets, but there’s growing evidence to suggest exactly the opposite.
A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that holistic workforce training provided a 250 per cent return on investment within eight months – because of the productivity gains it delivered.
Despite the hype, an English win against the talented Danes is far from assured on Wednesday. But what is certain is that millions of Britons – including many who wouldn’t normally give two hoots for football – will want to share the experience of the match. In an era when so many of us have been leading an atomised existence, what better way to bring people together than by rolling a big screen into the office and ordering some pizza?
And if remote workers go off the radar for a few hours, then why be a spoilsport and punish them for it? Giving staff a break to let them enjoy the game may well end up paying dividends in the long run by boosting morale, bringing benefits that stretch far beyond the final whistle.
As the nation chafes against 15 months of on-off lockdowns, Gareth Southgate’s men will offer England 90 minutes of blessed release on Wednesday night. Bosses shouldn’t stand in their way – both for the good of their staff and for the good of their bottom line.
