Business with pleasure

Business with pleasure
By Liu Haoting (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-19 15:00

"Nobody wanted to miss that match," the 29-year-old football fan recalls. Airbus ended up showing it on an overhead projector that afternoon in its auditorium.

"At that moment, I felt our company cared about its employees," Gong says.

Born in Spain, Casanova is a die-hard Spanish national team supporter.

"If Spain really reaches the final this year, I will prepare a special gathering, even though it will be midnight," says Casanova, proudly showing off the red Spanish football jersey he recently bought in Beijing.

Airbus is not alone. German pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim organized a series of football matches at its headquarters in late May. Eight teams, made up of employees from the company's subsidiaries in different countries, faced off against each other in a friendly tournament.

Analysts say the greatest football show on earth can sometimes serve as a bridge to bring employers closer to their staff.

"It would be more efficient if employers helped their employees shift some of their enthusiasm about football to routine work," says Zhang Tingwen, an HR analyst at ChinaHR.com.

Fifty-three per cent of the 300 HR managers the online company surveyed in China believe it's important to prepare special plans for the World Cup started. They say it's important to let employees know "the bottom line on company regulations."

But others believe companies should be consistent and serious about management.

Otherwise, employees might take it for granted that the World Cup is a special period and they might start expecting more leeway from their employers.

Shen Jianfeng, vice-president of Jiangsu Longliqi Bioscience Co Ltd, supports the first type of management. Longliqi, based in East China's Jiangsu Province, is a leading Chinese household product company.

In early May, employees at Longliqi started filling out a form designed by the company's HR department. They wrote down whether they were football fans and which matches they wanted to watch during this year's World Cup.

"I believe we can more effectively plan our work ahead of time, because we get to know our employees better by doing this survey," Shen says.

The company will arrange special work shifts, for example, if one match attracts a large number of employees.

"We don't fight unprepared battles," Shen says.

Page:

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)