Chartered
Management Institute head Ann Francke (photo) said sports chat can exclude women.
"A
lot of women, in particular, feel left out," she told the BBC's Today
programme."They don't follow those sports and they don't like either being
forced to talk about them or not being included. I have nothing against sports
enthusiasts or cricket fans - that's great. But the issue is many people aren't
football fans. Bosses should crack down on sports chat.”
Ms
Francke is concerned that discussing football and, for example, the merits of
video assistant refereeing (VAR) can disproportionately exclude women and
divide offices.
Anyway,
Ms Francke does not think sports chatter should be banned, just moderated. She
said that good managers should be inclusive and ensure that everyone in their
team feels comfortable.
But
sports journalist Jacqui Oatley thinks cracking down on sports chatter would be
a "terrible idea".
"If
you ban football chat, then all you're going to do is alienate the people who
actually want to communicate with each other," she told the Today
programme.“It would be so, so negative to tell people not to talk about sport
because girls don't like it or women don't like it, that's far more divisive. The
secret was to discuss sport in an inclusive way and to notice if people are
blankly staring into space during the conversation.”
And
the majority of people responding to a LinkedIn post from the BBC appear to
agree with Ms Oatley.
Office
manager Debra Smyth worries that other topics could also be censored if sport
chatter is banned. "I personally think companies should not dictate what
people talk about, as not talking about it will alienate those with similar interests.
Where would it end? Banning people with children from talking about them so as not to alienate
people without children. Certainly not!"
Recruiter
Peter Ferguson said: "I have seen managers and staff build a more direct bond
over a shared love of sport which has excluded those who don't share that
interest. The answer is not to ban the conversation, it is to ensure managers
and staff are trained to understand that those shared interests should not get
in the way of management decisions or working collaboratively."
