Lessons From the FIFA World Cup

Business owners around the world are breathing a collective sigh of relief now that the grand spectacle that is the FIFA World Cup has come to a close, signaling, at long last, that it is back to business as usual. Although soccer doesn’t have the deep roots in North America as it does in other parts of the world, the FIFA World Cup is widely regarded as the planet’s most important and widely viewed sporting event, and one reaches a truly global audience. The World Cup only takes place every four years and this year’s host nation, Brazil, is the country whose economy is most directly affected by the tournament. But the month-long tournament also has enormous economic impacts on other countries as well. Some of the numbers related to the tournament (mostly concerning the US economy), provided by InsideView are staggering. For example, 80% of the world’s population will watch some part of the World Cup; the US, it is estimated, lost $390 million in productivity during their group match game against Germany alone; and the World Cup will cost the British economy 250 million working hours. During the World Cup, quite literally, the world stops.

Where is all this productivity lost?

The biggest area affecting productivity is from workers who actually take sick days in order to watch their nation compete in games. But it gets worse. An estimated 10% of workers will come in late for work having stayed up late to watch the games. And who knows how much time and productivity is lost from workers sneaking a peak during working hours or just conversing about the tournament. All in all, as far as productivity is concerned, the World Cup amounts to a colossal distraction.

Steer Into the Skid

Some business owners’ strategies, in light of these statistics, can be to implement draconian-like policies for the duration of the tournament. But, some business owners are finding that the best solution is not just to not fight it, but to embrace the tournament, and see it as an opportunity to enhance other aspects of the business. According to Mercer research in four Latin American countries, it showed that on average over 87% of businesses are willing “to be flexible during the World Cup in offering employees short-term benefits that may have a positive impact on long-term productivity and morale”.

Specific Strategies

Many businesses are coming up with ways to make the World Cup accessible to their employees while keeping a steady workflow. They include things like allowing employees to leave work early or be flexible with their working hours, watching their nation play while working from home, and even equipping their break rooms with TVs that show the games.

The Lasting Impact

A recent Forbes article even found that the World Cup can actually have a positive impact on the bottom line of a company by boosting morale. Neal Taparia, Co-CEO of Imagine Easy Solutions, described the buzz of excitement around the office by their policy of embracing the tournament and playing all of the games in one of their conference rooms, suggesting that it connected employees to each other and to the products they design.

There’s much to learn from the World Cup, as it will surely test employee commitment. At the end of the day, the World Cup is never the difference between success and failure, but reveals much about the connection between the management and the employees.

Links to studies and works referenced in this article:

http://blog.insideview.com/2014/06/26/2014-world-cup-productivity/

http://www.mercer.com/insights/think/2014/world-cup-versus-productivity-compromise-is-the-goal.html

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101766632

http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2014/06/25/watching-the-world-cup-will-increase-office-productivity/

The High Cost of Free Labor

When I was in college there was a word that floated around the halls in whispers. It drew people in, it had a story attached to it, and it caught the attention of anyone who heard it – it was the word “internship”.

What Belongs to History

Once upon a time, internships were seen as being set aside for, and granted only to, the most exemplary individuals. The way to get an internship took time, effort, and the ability to connect with the people who could get you to where you wanted to go. It carried an uncommon caché that lauded the intern as the bright eyed next generation. It was a springboard for worthy candidates to help them gain real world experience and prepare to enter the workforce while building on the knowledge they were gaining by investing in their education. In sum, not too long ago, internships were both a rare and effective way to kick-start one’s career.

In principle, an internship is a great idea: A company hires an enthusiastic individual looking to build a career in that field and nurtures them, at little or no cost, into eventually becoming a fully functioning member of their workforce. Internships were once a sort of farm team where a company might have been looking to create a position and would tell the candidate, “Tough it out over the summer and when you graduate you’ll be on the team – we have high hopes for you”.

Times Change

It didn’t take too long for people to learn that the path to a better job and a better life went through the area designated for the intern and the volunteer. So when the cat got out of the bag, everybody was out looking for a chance to get some experience that would often serve as nothing more than a way to fill out one’s resume. In no short amount of time, people who had worked as interns were becoming less and less likely to be taken on by the company they worked for, or would parlay their internship experience to go and work for another, sometimes rival, company. Suddenly companies started experimenting with what kind of tasks they could get away with delegating to their interns, and just as suddenly some companies began to realize that branding a job as an internship could be a quick and easy way to get cheap, even free, labor.

The Rise and Fall of the Volunteer

Not all that long ago, seemingly well-intentioned projects would hire volunteers who would trade their labor in exchange for a meaningful experience, usually overseas, that could change lives. It was a direct exchange of labor for experience, straight up. Because of the rising number of volunteers looking for experience to once again, fill out one’s resume, the opportunities became more numerous and the exchange is no longer so direct. Nowadays, aside from the smallest community volunteer group, all volunteers are pay volunteers as in they pay to volunteer. The volunteer experience of working for free has become an actual commodity that people pay for, and is now a business in its own right.

Where We Are

The net effect of intern-volunteer inflation has been to render their titles virtually meaningless. Tales of internship woe among the young are ubiquitous as they are being charged with doing real work, involving long hours for no pay, and coming away from their experience disillusioned and with little to show for it. Within many companies the intern has become a position like any other usually connoting that they are responsible for all tasks deemed beneath that of the full-time staff. Once reserved for individuals who were otherwise green in the workforce, it is now not uncommon to find college graduates, and individuals with several years of relevant work experience, settling for the role of intern by virtue of the fact that internship positions continually replace what were once legitimate full-time jobs.

What Can We Do?

I wish there were clear answers. The truth is, the following are just suggestions: 

• Always try to create full-time employment.
• Make it a policy to pay every employee better than the minimum wage.
• Let your full-time staff share the load of the less desirable, no less important, duties of the company – don’t create a position specifically for them.
• Recognize that interns are there to learn, so you are the teacher and your company is the classroom – so offer them an educational experience.
• If you are someone looking for experience, instead of dropping the big bucks to essentially just travel, find the most local grassroots organization that you can and just say, “I want to help”. The rewards from that kind of community involvement are far more gratifying in the long run.

Helpful Hints to Avoid Procrastination

If you're reading this article then it's probably because of two reasons: you want to find ways to avoid procrastination or you’re actually procrastinating at this moment. Procrastination is that habit many people often fall into that prevents them from getting something done, whether it's a business proposal, a trip to the gym or spring cleaning.

If left unchecked, a bad procrastination habit can actually be a deterrent to advancement in a career or getting good grades in school. In the realm of independent consultants, procrastination can lead to a loss of business. No employer wants to wait for a project that has passed the deadline. There are some very helpful hints when it comes to avoiding procrastination. How quickly can you make these a part of your daily routine?

·         Make a Commitment: This is a lot like accepting a deadline, but it's also more about your own personal responsibility. When you commit to finishing a project by a certain date then you are pretty much putting your reputation on the line. Even if it's a small matter of returning an e-mail or phone call within 24 hours, it's still a commitment that you can make to yourself. Staying true to that commitment can go a long way towards improving your business relationships which equates to success.

·         Prioritize: If you have a list of several small assignments and one big task, don't let the little jobs get in the way. You need to prioritize your tasks by level of importance and deadline. This can be done at the beginning of every morning as you set out plans for your work day.

·         Utilize the Morning: Speaking of the morning, that is a perfect time to accomplish tasks that are due by the end of the business day. It's simply a matter of figuring out how long a particular task will take and then setting aside those hours in the morning to do the actual work. In many cases this goal could be reached by lunchtime!

·         Get Prepared: A common theme for procrastinators is that they're never ready. This goes back to that issue of staying organized. As a freelance consultant, if you're working on a project that involves a certain amount of research then you should conduct that research all at once and assemble it in a single file or group. That way you'll have easy access to that information when it's time for you to disseminate it. There's no excuse for poor prep work.

 

·         Remove the Distractions: Ironically, the very thing you are reading this article on is probably the biggest contributor to procrastination. That would be the Internet. Today, we use the Internet to communicate with friends, read news and conduct business. While it's easy to get lost in the world of YouTube or Facebook, those activities should be regulated for off work hours. Perhaps you should look at spending time on those personal sites as a reward for a job well done. Don't let the Internet drag you down!

Now that you've read some helpful tips about avoiding procrastination, it’s time to get back to work!