How To Counter World Cup Cricket Fever In Office And Maintain Productivity

• The first one is simple . Its the high handed approach . You can set a strict guidelines and the couple it with repeated monitoring by disciplinarians in your company and ensure zero tolerance to anything other than work.
• The second approach is to acknowledge that every one is excited about it. So no matter how much you monitor they would still check the score on the internet, pretend sick on the days they don't want to miss the match . A worst-case scenario , if you push them they would grumble and make mistakes. This would affect the productivity
• In this case, request you to plan events that would make the best use of this euphoria to boost productivity. Please remember, this was created by marketing firms to provide stimulus to the market. Imagine this stimulus is so strong that it gets people to spend even when they are least likely to. Hence identify those triggers and plan your work accordingly. Here's my suggestion on how to implement that:

• First and foremost identify what are the business risk due to such a change in behavior. Plan work allocation on the basis of that.
• Define what are the limits to which you would be able to plan engagement activities, such as a Worldcup day on friday, where you allow your employees to wear the t-shirts of the cricket teams they support. This is merely an opportunity for them to rewind and connect as there would be many , who would wear similar t-shirts.
• Design incentives for higher performance during this phase. The moment you focus on the positives , its likely that the employees would be motivated to work harder. You may even name them on the World cup - trophies so far. This association would be exciting for them . So even if its not a very good incentive , it would still remain special for them. Moreover , it would be easy for you to roll back once the tournament is over. They would accept this time based incentive.
• Plan for a world-cup quiz. This may seem pointless from a management point of view. But a small event scheduled during the break hour on Fridays will recharge them better.
• Finally set strong ground rules. Once you have made all the positive reinforcement, define what is not acceptable. Make sure that the constant score checking does not distract anyone at work. Keep a check on prolonged discussion at the water cooler about the cricket teams. You may set up a notice board for a collage a day , where you allow the employees to put up pictures or message that would review the match played a day before. Declare a winner everyday on the ideas shared there. You may not give any prize. But with this initiative you are allowing them to share their cool ideas and knowledge about cricket . This venting will help you prevent any dissatisfaction from the monitoring that you would do at the water cooler.