Posted: March 19, 2011

By Katie Adams

Correspondent

If you're calling a local business over the next few weeks, you may be on hold for a little longer than usual. That's because March 15 signaled the beginning of "March Madness," the men's NCAA college basketball tournament.

Sixty-eight teams will compete over a 25-day period for the vaunted NCAA championship title. The tournament will be broadcast by CBS and Turner network cable channels; it will also be available through the highly popular March Madness on Demand online streaming video service. Last year's tournament captured 134.1 million viewers.

While CBS and Turner Sports are eager for those viewers to tune in, many employers are aware that their workers are watching while they're "on the clock."

In fact, in 2008 CBS Sports reported that 90 percent of online tournament viewers watched from their workplace. Last year 8.3 million people (an increase of 36 percent from 2009) watched online for a total of 11.7 million hours.

The question for employers is, does March Madness hinder employee productivity?

Global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. says "yes." Using statistics from CBS.com, the firm estimates that workers will spend at least 8.4 million hours watching the tournament online this year and that the lowered productivity could cost U.S. businesses nearly $200 million.

Not only are workers watching on their computers, but this year CBS Sports is offering free mobile apps, which means smartphone and tablet (i.e. iPad) holders can watch perhaps even more secretively.

Some employers take a proactive approach by blocking access to the March Madness on Demand streaming video site or other sports-related sites during business hours.

Jonathan Harrell, director of network engineering for information technology at Regent University in Chesapeake, said the school learned from last year's tournament that it needed to make a few network changes to ensure not only productivity but connectivity.

"If even just five or 10 people stream online video to watch tournament games at their desks, it can really slow down a firm's Internet speed," Harrell said. "We know a lot of people love to follow the tournament, especially because we have a local team [Old Dominion University], but this year we're blocking the streaming websites to ensure that it doesn't affect our networking ability. We will allow sites that post scores so people can follow the tournament and we're looking at having TVs in conference rooms to show games at certain times so employees can enjoy following the tournament together."

Hampton University was also in the first round of the tournament. Whether either local team would advance wasn't known by press time.

Steps like blocking certain websites can be effective in ensuring that time isn't lost to Internet disruptions but fortunately Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that most managers said the tournament wasn't too much of a temptation. In fact only 20 percent of workers said they're distracted at work by sports-related competitions. And Office Team found that a majority of managers - 57 percent - were fine with tournament-related events in the workplace as long as they were "in moderation."

The Virginia Beach-based operational equipment solutions provider ADS allows office pools and doesn't restrict employees from watching games.

"I guess what it comes down to is that we trust our people to do the right thing, our employees to always go above and beyond, which is evident by our continued growth when most companies are going in the opposite direction," said Troy Clifton, director of community relations.

Organizations can choose a blend of approaches when dealing with March Madness - both limiting certain access but also leveraging the tournament to boost employee morale. Managers can employ creative ideas such as:

* Holding a department party and inviting current and/or prospective clients to watch games onsite.

* Inviting employees to watch games in a work break room or conference room to reduce the likelihood of watching online at their desks.

* Hosting a March Madness-themed office lunch or potluck

* Setting up an official office or department "pool." Check your company's legal policy regarding workplace-based gambling before requiring an entry fee and consider a non-cash prize instead.

"We have flat-screen TVs throughout our office so people are welcome to watch the games if they would like," said Victoria McCoy, vice president of DOMA Technologies in Virginia Beach. "We have never had a problem with the tournament because our employees know to make sure that it's not intruding on their work. However, there probably is a place to draw the line and for us that means no office betting pools."

If you're considering setting up a workplace pool for employees to bet on the games - even if it's a fee-free pool - check with your human resources department first.

A 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 1 in 3 companies prohibit workplace gambling including events such as a workplace pool or bracket.

The likelihood of a worker facing significant consequences for an NCAA-related workplace policy infraction is very minor however - only 6 percent of firms have ever disciplined or fired an employee for participating in such an event.

Many managers whose companies don't explicitly prohibit office betting pools find that they can be a great way to foster employee morale and team-building. One in five - or 20 percent - of workers said that they have participated in March Madness pools at work, according to a CareerBuilder survey.

Now back to that statistic: 8.4 million hours in lost productivity. That big number becomes manageably smaller when you realize that American workers work an average of 3.7 billion hours in one week - adding up to more than 11 billion hours during the three-week tournament. Lost productivity because of the big tournament really represents only 0.07 percent of total hours worked during the same period.

Whether you choose to embrace or ignore March Madness you can be sure that the tournament is likely to be a topic of your employees' conversation for the next few weeks. nib