Love it or hate it, football takes centre stage this summer. Can you survive the coming World Cup with both business productivity and good employee relations intact? Self-confessed football fan Tim Smedley talks tactics.

In April, a CIPD straw poll of members found that 90 per cent didn’t have a policy for staff absence during the FIFA World Cup, with only 5 per cent even thinking of developing one. This is surprising. Because whether or not you can tell the difference between Lionel Messi and Lionel Richie, the chances are that a significant percentage of your workforce will hold an avid interest in the goings-on in South Africa between 11 June and 11 July.

And you are not let off the hook if the majority of your employees’ national teams aren’t represented in the competition. The quadrennial tournament is a quasi-religious event for fans of football. For some, the allure of obscure sporting spectacles such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea versus Cote d’Ivoire (3pm GMT, Friday 25 June, for those that are interested) becomes impossible to resist. And that’s before we even get to the games where workers actually support the team, and the issues of drinking that tend to arise. (Did we mention England would be playing?)

Like it or not, having a game plan to tackle the World Cup is a good idea. So, what to do? We picked the following 10 weird or wonderful suggestions and asked our HR “pundits” to rate them.

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