Scotland's return to the World Cup after a 28-year absence is genuinely worth celebrating. But if you employ people, there's a less glamorous side to this: kick-off times across North American time zones will fall during working hours for much of the tournament, and some of your staff will call in sick when they're not. Holmes Mackillop Solicitors, the Glasgow-based employment law firm, is urging employers to resist the urge to come down hard on absence without thinking it through first.
The core advice is practical: a knee-jerk disciplinary response to suspicious sick days during the tournament can backfire badly if it isn't handled correctly. Under UK employment law, short-term sickness absence — even if an employer privately suspects it's a hangover or a late night in front of the telly — must still be managed within the proper framework. That means return-to-work interviews, consistent application of any absence policy, and no singling out of individuals. The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) guidance is clear: employers need to treat all absences consistently, or risk claims of unfair treatment or discrimination.
The smarter move, according to Holmes Mackillop, is to get in front of the problem now. That means communicating your absence and flexible working policy to staff before the tournament starts. If you can accommodate requests for annual leave, flexible start times, or compressed hours around key Scotland fixtures, do it — it's cheaper than managing the aftermath of a messy disciplinary process. According to research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), organisations that handle major sporting events with a degree of flexibility consistently report higher morale and lower unplanned absence than those that take a rigid approach.
For Scottish SMEs specifically, the stakes feel different. A small team of five or eight people can't absorb a couple of unplanned absences the way a 500-person corporate can. One person off without notice in a small practice, a independent retailer, or a building firm can mean a missed appointment, a delayed job, or a client left waiting. That's not an HR problem — that's a revenue problem. Which is exactly why having a written policy, communicated clearly and applied consistently, matters more at this scale, not less.
The World Cup runs from 11 June to 19 July 2026. Scotland are in Group A alongside Portugal, Argentina, and Morocco — which means early group stage fixtures are likely to attract serious attention. Employers who wait until mid-June to think about this will already be managing the fallout. Those who send a clear, fair communication to staff this month — setting out what flexibility is available, what the absence process looks like, and what's expected — will be in a significantly stronger position. Holmes Mackillop's guidance is a timely reminder that good employment practice isn't something you dust off when a problem arrives. It's what stops the problem arriving in the first place.