Is your company ready for the Football World Cup kicking off next month in South Africa? Even if you are completely underwhelmed by the prospect of the World’s most watched sporting event, it is very likely that your employees are very much getting ready for it.
The last World Cup in 2006 in Germany attracted global viewing figures of over 26 Billion with 715.1 Million viewers for the final alone (Source:
FIFA). England’s first knock out game of the 2006 tournament versus Ecuador alone had UK viewing figures of over 16 million.
Luckily for UK businesses this year’s tournament schedule has been kind and there is only likely to be one England game during normal working hours with England’s group decider against Slovenia kicking off at 3pm on Wednesday the 23rd June.
For a full list of fixtures that can be imported into MS Outlook download this file.
World Cup UK TV fixtures.xls
During the first two weeks of the tournament there are typically two games per day during working hours with the next two knock out phases having roughly half of the games kicking off before 5pm. Only as the tournament comes to a climax will the games move to an evening kick off. With all games available on terrestrial TV, radio and being streamed live by either the BBC or ITV websites there will be a serious amount of lost productivity during the tournament. Depending on where you are interest will be especially greater on and around England games and during the latter stages of the tournament.
It will be sensible for companies to publish some kind of policy of acceptable viewing or listening habits. Allowing network users to watch or listen to online broadcasts during the working day will have three detrimental affects to business:
1. Lost productivity.
2. Negative effect on those not interested in games.
3. Degradation of internet access due to consumed bandwidth.
A sensible and well thought out policy with some concessions will have a positive impact on employee morale. How about advising against online access to games, but allowing users to listen to games via personal radio or audio devices? How about shutting up shop early for the one England game being televised during working hours and showing the game on a big screen and inviting all staff to attend?
Whatever you decide to do Conduce IT Services can help with the introduction of your policy. If you are totally against the World Cup we can help you restrict access to online services and lock down internet policies accordingly. We use and recommend WebSense which allows all kind of flexible and configurable internet access policies (such as time restrictions, daily quotas, etc).
If you are a football nut we can help you optimise your internet access for the best uninterrupted coverage and help you choose the best audio-video equipment for the work place.
Whatever you decide to do, have a great World Cup and
COME ON ENGLAND!!