Don’t Sweat Company Productivity During March Madness: March Madness is exactly that… madness. There’s so many games to watch, decisions to make, brackets to keep track of, teams to support, underdogs to risk it all on… Emotions and tensions run high, while office productivity tends to run low. This isn’t new after over 75 years of tournament excitement, but businesses have seen the basketball takeover gradually becoming more and more prevalent as employees are not even just calling in sick for the day to hit up the local sports bar, but coming into work and using company bandwidth to stream games all day. This sounds less than ideal if you’re the owner of the company, but is it really such a bad thing? You could be using March Madness to your company’s advantage. Here’s how.
It’s said that over 60 million Americans will go to the office solely to watch March Madness, resulting in $1.9 billion in lost wages. Ok, so yeah that sounds really less than ideal, but trying to take a proactive stand against this is likely to cause your company even more harm. By attempting to shut down any tournament activities, you’re risking a serious blow to employee engagement and morale that’s extremely valuable to you in the long run. This madness is only temporary, so if you can’t beat it, join it! I mean, even the President of the US has time to fill out a bracket, so maybe it’s time you embrace it.
No, we are not implying that watching basketball will directly result in larger profits for those three weeks. But we are saying that a happy employee is a productive one, and telling your team that there will be no March Madness in the office this year is definitely a great way to watch employee happiness plummet. In fact, it’s completely reasonable to assume that employees following the games closely or who have teams that will mostly go deep into the tournament are likely to anticipate the game times and plan accordingly. They simply learn to budget their time and are even more productive in the off hours when games aren’t on in order to free themselves up. Conversely, people with teams that are out of the tournament early, are often back to work after their team is sent packing. In the end, both employees got to enjoy cheering their teams on without sacrificing their work OR hating you in the process.
However, in addition to earning brownie points by allowing employees to watch during work hours, it is also an opportunity to bring everyone together to enhance company culture and closeness. A practical way to do this is host a company-wide pool where coworkers, as well as family and friends, can submit their brackets with prize incentives for the winners (and maybe even last place to keep everyone interested). A little friendly internal competition is a great way for employees who wouldn’t normally cross paths to communicate and bond with one another. Plus, online bracket hosting has made it super easy to set these pools up, so little work is involved to accomplish this fun morale boost.
Some companies have really taken March Madness fun to the next level, hosting viewing parties with food and beer and even extending the invite to the local community. This approach not only embraces the social aspect of the tournament, but gives employees the chance to build professional relationships and network in a relaxed, unforced setting. You’re sure to get great feedback and appreciation from your team that is so beneficial in the long run.
If you’re still not really convinced, don’t forget the out of office hours spent by your employees the other 49 weeks of the year. The work you think they’re putting on the back burner during these three weeks, could have very well taken priority over social events, family time and other games throughout the year. Your employees work hard day in and day out, so it’s nice to recognize this effort with a little something for them.
March Madness doesn’t have to mean madness for your company. On the contrary, it can be great for business in the long run. When it becomes something people can look forward to each year, they’ll prepare in advance and manage their time accordingly to stay as productive as possible, not only for personal reasons, but out of gratitude to the company. And let’s face it, the games themselves cause enough stress without adding a missed deadline to the mix. Every business’ employees are unique, so your solution may be different than the next company, but consider some of these options to help ease your worry during tournament time. Take a new approach this year… your employees will thank you!
May your favorite team win! 🙂
Resources:
-Fortune.com (Link to: http://ow.ly/ZFRKX )
-Forbes.com (Link to: http://ow.ly/ZFRxj )
-Washingtonpost.com (Link to: http://ow.ly/ZFRoG )