Between 14 June and 15 July, the 2018 World Cup Season will take place at 12 stadium locations in Russia, with a total of 64 matches between 32 national teams. The series of matches will be watched by between 50,000 and 80,000 stadium attendees per match, depending on location capacity. But judging by past experience, total world-wide viewing could exceed 3 billion people, with over one billion viewers for the World Cup final match on 15 July in Moscow.
A controversial location
Russia was selected as the venue for the 2018 series back in December 2010, but with strong controversy and accusations of dubious practices. Latterly, Russia as the selected venue has become even more controversial. Several major football-playing countries have imposed sanctions, resulting in retaliatory actions by Russia itself. However, the World Cup enjoys unbeatable viewer attractions which are sure to prevail over any other disadvantages.
One of the challenges faced by prospective worldwide viewers will be the timing for matches. The local Russian times are locally convenient, ranging between kick-off times of 13.00 and 21.00. However for viewers around the World, these times will vary in convenience, depending on time zones. For Thailand, with a four-hour time difference, kick-off times will range between 17.00 for the earliest and 01.00 am for the more popular kick-off time of 21.00 Russia time. The Thailand kick-off times will be 17.00 (13.00 Russia) 1 match, 19.00 (15.00 Russia) 6 matches, 20.00 (16.00 Russia) 2 matches, 21.00 (17.00 Russia) .14 matches, 22.00 (18.00 Russia) 12 matches, 23.00 (19.00 Russia) 3 matches, 24.00 (20.00 Russia) 4 matches, and 01.00 am (21.00 Russia) 22 matches.
The only East Asian teams involved in this year’s series are Japan and Korea. However there is much Thailand viewer interest for European and South American teams, which are well-represented in the series. These match timings will mean late nights extending into early mornings for many enthusiastic football followers. Accordingly, the coming month risks stretching the work/life balance to near breaking-point, disrupting work routines and threatening job security for employees of unsympathetic bosses.
Work/life balance really matters
There was once a time when the work/life balance was so heavily tilted on the side of work, that anyone who believed that there was any place left for family life would find themselves sorely disappointed, or even losing their jobs. However, nowadays there is a realisation among both employers and employees that work, to an increasing extent, is undertaken mainly to support life rather than the reverse. In some countries the turnaround has become so marked that the so-called “gig economy” has taken over, with work routines organised to suit the convenience of lifestyles and family routines. Flexible working routines, working from home, the digital economy and virtually mobile working environments, have all resulted in a much more casual working environment. Fitting the World Cup into such working routines is likely to require a little more versatility than the average, but nevertheless can still be managed. The children still have to get to school on time, and important client meetings still have to be arranged for mutual convenience. But maybe the clients will want to watch the same World Cup matches, so varying meeting times will be mutually convenient.
The limits to flexibility
But by no means everybody, especially in Thailand, has made the transition to flexible working hours. For those who have not made that transition, or have found such practices inconvenient or unsuitable for their working environments, it is not possible to simply adopt a flexible working routine just to cover World Cup time from mid-June to mid-July. Furthermore, if everyone wants the same free time to watch the same match, along with the late morning work-start the next day, flexibility is simply not going to solve the problem.
There is every positive reason to find solutions. Employee satisfaction and incentivization are the hall-marks of good labour relations. These, in turn, lead to employee loyalty, low labour turnover, and maximum efficiency and performance. There are certainly plenty of other occasions to reward good performance, including New Year, Chinese New Year, Songkran and other special holidays. The World Cup series does not enthuse everybody and is hardly part of the traditional Thailand routine. However, for the football enthusiasts and the football gamblers, the World Cup series is as important as other traditional events. Therefore World Cup time is a good occasion to display corporate goodwill and to turn what could have been a major headache into an ideal opportunity to enhance corporate team spirit.
It is therefore much better to face up to facts and accommodate the challenge to the work/life balance, rather than have some part of the workforce turn up to work late, exhausted by sleeplessness, or simply taking false sick-leave, as some workers otherwise might do. For those undertaking potentially dangerous tasks, such as machine minding or vehicle-driving, alertness is essential. Lack of such alertness can be fatal. For those involved in such tasks as data entry, inaccuracies could also be costly. So the challenge must be faced realistically, not ignored or rejected.
Developing Win-Win solutions
The first step is certainly to identify the extent of World Cup interest in the individual workplace. How many of the workforce are likely to be affected, and how are they represented by seniority, job function, age and gender? Employers can thereby determine which segments of the workforce will be affected or unaffected. The second step is then to determine how far World Cup enthusiasm can be accommodated in annual leave entitlement, shift working or flexible hours, taking account of how absence of some workers will affect others and the overall workplace routine.
The third step can then be to allocate time schedules to ensure that overall manpower disruption can be minimised. It will not be possible to achieve a perfect labour allocation to meet shortfalls, but it is better to be prepared than to face unanticipated absenteeism. Senior staff need to show responsibility and leadership. One cannot limit time-off for junior employees and then be conspicuously absent oneself.
Apart from carefully-planned time allocations and absence, it is also possible to make positive use of the World Cup series as an element of workforce solidarity. Some positive-minded companies around the World enjoying more conveniently timed World Cup matches may organise staff TV big screen viewing parties, in-house competitions and prizes, especially during quarter, semi and final match nights. However the quarter- and semi-finals are mostly at 01.00 am. Thailand time kick-offs, with the final on 15 July kicking-off at 22.00 at night. According it will be hard to replicate such events here in Thailand to fit in with any kind of workplace routine.
Some worthwhile comments and advice can be obtained from the Adecco Group Asia Pacific advisory publication “Employee Management during the 2018 FIFA World Cup: Score to Win with Your Team”, available on the Adecco-APAC website: https://www.adecco.com.hk/employment-management-during-the-2018-fifa-world-cup
Author: Christopher F. Bruton is Executive Director of Dataconsult Ltd, chris@dataconsult.co.th. Dataconsult’s Thailand Regional Forum provides seminars and extensive documentation to update business on future trends in Thailand and in the Mekong Region.
