Businesses in the United States will lose $2.1 billion in productivity to workers focusing on the NCAA basketball tournament rather than doing their jobs, according to an annual prediction by workforce outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
Workers will spend plenty of time early this week researching teams and filling out brackets for office and other tournament pools. The firm estimates those losses could reach $600 million alone.
The real losses will come Thursday and Friday when early tournament games start in the middle of the workday. With so many tournament games broadcast online and on mobile devices, many workers will turn their attention from work tasks to tiny screens to try to keep up with the action.
The firm’s estimates are bases on an average hourly pay rate of $26. It also estimates that about 23.7 million U.S. workers will spend time following the tournament at the office. That translates to $615 million in losses for each lost hour.
“While television viewership for last year’s tournament and for NCAA games overall was lower than previous years, the economy has created more workers and a higher hourly wage, which could equate to higher costs to employers,” Challenger said in the firm’s annual release on the tournament.
“In the current political climate, more American workers might welcome this distraction leading to an even higher cost to productivity
Challenger said employers should attempt to mitigate the losses and not enforce a no-tolerance policy for all things related to the tournament.
“Any attempt to do so would most likely result in long-term damage to employee morale, loyalty, and engagement that would far outweigh any short-term benefit to productivity” he said.. “Employers should embrace March Madness and seek ways to use it as a tool to foster camaraderie.”
He said things like allowing employees to take meal or other breaks when their favorite team is playing will help.
