This soccer World Cup tournament has brought a lot of changes to the people at work. Playing regular games at 13:30 GMT+1 makes the fanatics wanna watch the games. With Holland playing games at 13:30 and 16:00 during work days this has been a huge challenge to a lot of companies; this is the epic test for flexibility.

At my company, we had a tv screen for the daily matches. During work, most people only watched the key moments of the game and missed out on all but about 5 important minutes of the game. Ofcourse, some focus will be lost. People will be watching the game sometimes. But one important factor is often overlooked; there was a discussion happening and people loved being around at work and still watching the games.

Then there were some companies we heard of where work still had to be done and no tv was allowed. Ofcourse some professions, like teachers, cannot be that flexible. The companies I am talking about, however, were office jobs.

Being flexible at work is hot. Like the start of the dotcom when every company called itself ‘young and dynamic’ the word ‘flexible and caring’ is now stated at the job boards. But how flexible are these companies when it comes to working around - or working with - a major event like the World Cup?

Funny thing is, the traffic jams were still there, but only started earlier. People still had to watch Holland games at work as this was in working hours. Minutes before the game the road went bonanza with people getting to their favourite spot to watch the game. Is every company being flexible or just shifting hours?

At our company people who normally go by car now got the chance to do the weekly meeting via Skype. Before Holland games everybody was allowed to leave when he felt was needed and anybody who wanted to watch the games at the office was allowed to. We are still not that innovative, but I felt a lot of companies could have grabbed this opportunity to experiment with really being flexible.

Therefore, I call for a soccer World Cup tournament every year. We all still need a lot of practice.