Broadcasting 64 football matches in 31 days from 20 stadiums is a fair task; Tony Palmer of the Maple Partnership told delegates at the Softworld HR & Payroll conference how he ensured interrupted viewing by having the right people in the right place, at the right time.
The 2002 World Cup dominated by shocking upsets and rare golden goals was an event split between ten stadiums in South Korea and ten stadiums in Japan.
From the comfort of our armchairs it looked to be an occasion delivered with military precision, but revealed Palmer less than a year before first kick-off, only 75 of the 2000 workers needed to broadcast the event had been signed up.
“We had quite a few concerns when we came into the project. First and foremost was recruitment, we needed 2-3000 staff and only had 75, there was no consistent hiring policy, no safety and security policies for workers, and no plans in place to ensure staff were motivated once in place and appropriately orientated and integrated to work as a team.”
Working at the time, as Project Manager of the Host Broadcasting Services (HBS), Palmer was faced with an unexpected internal crisis on top of the heavy burden already weighing upon his shoulders.
“The parent company of HBS went bankrupt and three directors had to be replaced. We were thrown into internal turmoil. Things got so bad the Logistics Director walked into my office one day and said ‘I can’t cope’ and duly resigned.”
Added to this a shoddy employment process meant that workers from France had been employed on permanent contracts and the French Works Councils were pushing for redundancy packages for their members upon completion of the event.
“The safety and security policies, which were supposed to be the responsibility of the Japanese and Korean authorities weren’t in place either and the logistics of moving 600 professionals into Korea and Japan was becoming a huge ordeal. We had to move them, make sure they were insured and obtain visas for them if they were going to be in the country for more than three months.”
HR Professional was chosen as the software to ensure that the project was delivered on time and to plan. As well as keeping HR records it also provided a payroll function. Twelve different types of contracts were in circulation for the World Cup workforce.
“The system enabled us to pay our contract staff via Swiss Bank transfer system. We also made use of an ‘exception’ option; if a worker was off sick for so many days then they didn’t get paid for that time not worked.”
Key to the compensation and rewards package was an incentivized bonus payable upon completion of the event, another element that the software had to handle.
“In all those matches, there wasn’t a single one that was interrupted; our broadcasting was such a success that HBS have won the award for the 2006 World Cup. This has to be down to the success, in part, of having the right systems in place to ensure that staff were co-ordinated well, paid on time and motivated,” explains Palmer.
