So, it’s the Monday after Super Bowl and 15% of your employees didn’t show up. As HR professionals we are not shocked by this, it happens every year after the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl has become an unofficial national holiday. You don’t even have to like the teams playing to want to go to a Super Bowl party, or throw a Super Bowl party, because it’s become a national social event.
Kraft Foods understands this and instead of trying to move the Super Bowl started an online petition to declare the Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday, since, they claim, more than 16 million employees call in ‘sick’ the day after the Super Bowl costing organizations over $1 billion in lost productivity.
Think you have a God-given right to be off the day after the Super Bowl? Kraft Heinz agrees with you. So the food company’s giving all of its salaried employees the day off on February 6 after Super Bowl LI…
In addition to letting its employees stay home, Kraft Heinz is launching a campaign to push for everybody to be off after Super Bowls. It’s started an online petition to essentially create a new national holiday it calls “Smunday,” which extends Sunday’s Super Bowl fun into Monday.
Okay, some of this is just good old fashion marketing. Kraft Heinz food group makes a killing on Super Bowl weekend, so why not try a marketing stunt like this to drum up even more business and brand recognition!
The problem with this solution is it doesn’t really help employers gain back lost productivity and revenue, in fact, it only increases expenses by now having another paid holiday (an expense), with nothing to return the lost productivity of having your entire workforce off for a day.
The issue is that the NFL should move the Super Bowl game to Saturday evening or day. Can you imagine the nationwide party that would take place, over what it already is, if the Super Bowl was on Saturday night!
The NFL already gives both teams an extra week off to prepare. Starting the game on Saturday, instead of Sunday, wouldn’t harm the players, wouldn’t harm the NFL, and bars and restaurants would have even a bigger day than they do already.
If Kraft Heinz really wants to help America, they should change their petition to move the Super Bowl to Saturday, not just make up another work holiday.
How about using your Paid Time Off (PTO) for the day or morning after the Super Bowl? With my team in the Super Bowl, I knew that I would be needing the extra sleep and planned for the morning off. Where I work, our associates use their PTO for the things that are important to them and don’t have to call in with lame excuses. I’m surprised that more companies don’t do this. Happy associates are more engaged associates. Yay Patriots!!!
It’s all about a sense of responsibility, which appears to be disappearing in the American workforce. If you can’t get you butt into work then you are a jerk. The Super was over around 10 if you lived on the east coast. I California it was still lite out. Have a damn sense of responsibility to your job, not a sporting event. What’s next? Couldn’t come in because your daughter had a softball tournament, or you had to mow the lawn, or your wife’s parents came over? If you move it to Saturday, the same slackers will still not come to work on Monday. Put your big girl panties on and get to work. That’s how you support your family. The Super Bowl did not contribute one dollar to helping pay your bills or improve your life.
Totally agree with moving to Saturday, that makes all the sense in the world. Yeah, 15% don’t show up, but a large percentage of those that do are sleep deprived zombies.