Chances are you know someone who's skipped work after a big sporting event

With Super Bowl 53 less than two weeks away, football fans across North America are gearing up for yet another game featuring the New England Patriots, this time against the Los Angeles Rams.

And once the game is done and a Super Bowl champion is crowned, it turns out many of those fans who watched the game might not show up to work the next day.

One third of workers in Canada say they know someone who skipped work the day after a major sports events like the Super Bowl, according to a survey.

The survey, commissioned by OfficeTeam, a division of U.S.-based staffing company Robert Half, found that 37 per cent of respondents said they knew someone who had called in sick or made an excuse to skip work the day after a major sporting event. In a separate questionnaire to senior managers, 46 per cent said calling in sick the day was the most distracting behaviour when it came to how sporting events impacted the workplace.

“While it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of major sports events, employees need to anticipate their game-day activities and plan ahead to ensure it doesn’t interfere with their work,” Koula Vasipoloulous, a district director with OfficeTeam, said in a news release.

“By requesting time off in advance, adhering to company guidelines for fan attire or decorations and saving game discussions for their breaks, workers can still get into the spirit without impacting productivity.”

The survey, which was conducted by independent research firms, asked more than 1,000 workers in Canada over the age of 18 whether they knew anyone who had called in sick or made an excuse for skipping work the day after a sporting even such as the Super Bowl. More than 600 senior managers were surveyed in a separate poll asking what the most distracting behaviours were in relation to major sporting events.

The second most distracting behaviours, according to the senior managers surveyed, was spending too much time talking about sports (18 per cent) and showing up the next day tired (18 per cent), followed by being a poor sport or overly competitive (12 per cent) and overdoing it with decorations (6 per cent).

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