Here we go again: It’s March Madness, when sixty-odd college basketball teams vie for the national title — and employers vie for the attention of workers who keep sneaking peeks on the Internet to see how the alma mater is faring.
So the question becomes: What’s HR’s recommendation on how to handle this annual workplace distraction?
Mark Toth, head legal honcho for Manpower North America, outlines the three options available to employers (yes, they’re no-brainers, but actually executing any of these strategies is tricky).
Option 1: Ignore the whole thing. The most common approach, usually resulting in lower productivity, IT headaches (too many people checking websites that have no business value), attendance problems and “employees … traveling in packs wearing identical colors and disappearing into conference rooms from which occasional cheering and shouting can be heard.”
Option 2: The iron fist approach. This is where senior management issues a no-hoops mandate and IT spends a bunch of tech time putting on extra Internet filters and whatnot. Employee distraction remains, along with attendance concerns.
Option 3: Embrace it. Toth suggests such things as “set(ting) up TVs in key gathering areas” (to help ease IT strains) “for certain games and encourag(ing) employees to do some bonding while whooping it for their favorite teams.” Universal happiness and a lift in morale ensue.
So which option is your organization exercising this year?
