Final published version
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - COVID-19 infections and short-run worker performance
T2 - Evidence from European football
AU - Butler, David
AU - Butler, Robert
AU - Farnell, Alex
AU - Simmons, Robert
PY - 2024/6/1
Y1 - 2024/6/1
N2 - COVID-19 infections represent a recurrent source of workplace absenteeism impacting labour productivity. Using a unique matched employee-employer dataset, we consider the effects of the virus on the performance of highly valuable employees when returning to work: professional footballers in the top five European leagues. This offers a window to study job scheduling and managerial decision-making. We employ a difference-in-differences (DiD) model that compares the performance of infected players to a matched control group for game tasks that require physical exertion. Results suggest that per-minute performance is unaffected upon returning to play. This is likely due to effective management of minutes on the pitch. We carry out a battery of checks on the primary results to consider causal mechanisms outside of infection that could impact the results such as lockdown breaks, clusters within squads, and scheduling effects. The findings carry an optimistic message and specifically speak to managers supervising physical labour. If appropriately managed, infected workers can return to past performance levels.
AB - COVID-19 infections represent a recurrent source of workplace absenteeism impacting labour productivity. Using a unique matched employee-employer dataset, we consider the effects of the virus on the performance of highly valuable employees when returning to work: professional footballers in the top five European leagues. This offers a window to study job scheduling and managerial decision-making. We employ a difference-in-differences (DiD) model that compares the performance of infected players to a matched control group for game tasks that require physical exertion. Results suggest that per-minute performance is unaffected upon returning to play. This is likely due to effective management of minutes on the pitch. We carry out a battery of checks on the primary results to consider causal mechanisms outside of infection that could impact the results such as lockdown breaks, clusters within squads, and scheduling effects. The findings carry an optimistic message and specifically speak to managers supervising physical labour. If appropriately managed, infected workers can return to past performance levels.
KW - OR in sport
KW - Productivity
KW - Performance
KW - Football
KW - COVID-19
U2 - 10.1016/j.ejor.2023.12.017
DO - 10.1016/j.ejor.2023.12.017
M3 - Journal article
VL - 315
SP - 750
EP - 763
JO - European Journal of Operational Research
JF - European Journal of Operational Research
SN - 0377-2217
IS - 2
ER -