It happens every year around this time. Before the first ball is tipped in the NCAA tournament, we get inundated with news reports about how brackets are destroying productivity in the workplace. Words like “fraud” are tossed around, and, seemingly, for good reason.
According to a study by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an estimated 50 million Americans participate in office pools while they’re on the clock. The cost to employers? More than $1.2 billion for every unproductive work hour.
“There are distractions every day at the office,” CEO John Challenger said, “but the first week of the annual men’s college basketball tournament is particularly hazardous to workplace productivity.”
And it isn’t just time spent filling out brackets. The Challenger report estimates that another $660 million will be lost as a result of employees who stream games from their phones and computers. In 2013, 6.8 million unique visitors spent just under two hours on average watching online streams during the tournament’s first week.
This blatant disregard for employer time and money even has a name: The March Madness Effect (not terribly original, but it gets the point across).
It all sounds pretty serious to me. But before you start blocking access to every sports website and watching the printer like a hawk for any signs of brackets, there are a few things I ask you to consider.
1. These reports are sensationalist journalism at its best (or worst). The ‘50 million’ figure being highlighted in so many news reports comes from one study. Another report estimated the number of pool participants at 37 million — still very high, but a step down. The media has a tendency to take one piece of information and run with it without taking a closer look at the sample size involved and methods used, not to mention checking to see if any other firms have conducted similar studies, and this can’t be overlooked.
2. No matter what the exact figure, we know that people — many of whom aren’t even basketball fans — participate in March Madness pools. But it isn’t necessarily detrimental to workplace efficiency. In fact, a survey by staffing firm Office team found that 75 percent of managers and executives said the NCAA tournament had no impact on productivity. Even more interesting, 32 percent believe pool participation can boost employee morale, and 27 percent say they have a positive impact on productivity.
It’s hard to say why. Maybe it’s because it’s something that generates a little excitement after a long, cold winter. Or maybe it provides a common ground for people who otherwise might not speak outside of brief, work-related conversations.
Either way, it’s something that smart employers are embracing — not banning. Satellite service provider Dish recently began encouraging employees to take “Bracket Breaks” during regular working hours, and is supporting the use of its Anywhere app so that employees can watch the NCAA Tournament on their mobile devices at work. It’s a move that I’m guessing was met with a whole lot of enthusiasm — not because people don’t want to work, but because sometimes, we all need to have a little fun.
In a blog published late last year, CIO Chris Walden of HealthAlliance described the reaction when he brought a ping pong table into the office: “You would have thought we had just distributed $500 bills to everyone. People laughed, smiled, got up from their desk to see what all the fuss was about. I got looks like ‘I can’t believe you really did this.’ Before my eyes a team formed and started to assemble the table. There was excitement and teamwork.”
With a simple move, Walden was able to breathe fresh life into his team. He wasn’t worried about a loss in productivity, because he knows that his good people will get the job done.
We live in a world where professional and personal lives have become intertwined. Yes, people occasionally take time during work to browse online sales or fill out brackets (even the President of the United States does it). However, they also respond to work e-mails and return calls while they’re at home. It’s simply the world we live in now. To fight it, or to think there’s anything ‘mad’ about it, is foolish.
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