World Cup will affect worker productivity

Is he working or watching the footie?

Something that may interest the eight Americans that are planning to watch the FIFA World Cup 2010...

There is serious concern around the globe that the FIFA World Cup will affect worker productivity. This isn't just worries that many will not come into work at all, but that by watching the games on their office computers, they could potentially crash company servers.

As the football-loving world gets ready for the Biggest Sporting Event in History, many companies are concerned that World Cup loving employees, who won't want to miss a minute of the action, could overload their servers and cause computer chaos by watching the games live from their desks.

In the UK, 54 percent of employees plan to watch the games on their work computer, while 58 percent of employers haven't even considered the impact this could have on their systems.

The survey, conducted by Eclipse, an internet service provider for small businesses and home users, shows the potential for computer chaos if large groups of the population opt to watch the matches instead of doing their work.

Speaking to Sky News, Eclipse' Clodagh Murphy said, "Workers clearly want to watch World Cup matches live on their PCs."

"However, we advise all businesses to be mindful about the impact this could have on their day-to-day business operations. Streamed content uses a lot of bandwidth and this could seriously impact the performance of their business internet connection.

"It could take much longer to download important files or use business-critical applications such as e-commerce sites, email or online backup. It might even lead to office computer systems crashing," she said.

Tackling in-office game watching

While it is arguably better than having all your staff not come into work at all in order to watch the football, watching the matches at work will no doubt impact productivity but a some-what naive 37 percent of employees stated that watching the games would not affect their work productivity. Meanwhile, a quarter thought there would be no impact on the speed of applications if all employees watched games online at work via online streaming sites.

Some companies however block streaming sites or may block them in order to give productivity high and to prevent people watching the game, but currently 56 percent of employees do not know whether their companies currently had any restrictions or guidelines in place to stop them.

Taking all this into account, in the UK there could potentially be a massive strain on broadband services on Wednesday, June 23rd when England play Slovenia at 3pm.

If you have offices in the UK, it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on productivity on that day... and the efficiency of your IT systems, because despite your best efforts the World Cup WILL affect worker productivity.

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