Dynamic Happenings

Countering the Loss in Company Revenue Due to March Madness

If your company is lucky enough to have a water cooler, chances are people are meeting around it to discuss brackets, upsets, and victories.  You don’t need to look at your calendar to know what they are talking about.  It’s March. And that means Madness.

March Madness is the informal name given to the second most famous sporting events in the Unites States next to the Super Bowl, the annual NCAA college basketball tournament. Fans all across the country scribble the names of the 68 college teams on pieces of paper, carefully crafting their brackets, vying for the right to predict the national champion of the major college basketball teams.

According to a recent report in the Washington Business Journal, global outplacement firm, Challenger, Gray, and Christmas conservatively predicts that employers will lose approximately $1.9 million dollars in productivity in the first week of the 2015 NCAA Tournament.  With the excitement of March Madness, employees are using work hours to make brackets, compare brackets, and watch the games. 

While the official kickoff to March Madness starts Thursday, March 19h, employers can count on lost productivity beginning on Monday morning, March 16, the day after teams are placed, seeded, and announced.

It’s Useless to Fight March Madness, Embrace It

Employers attempting to fight the craze surrounding March Madness may just as well embrace it rather than try to stop it.  Challenger suggests using March Madness to bring unity to your business, encouraging companies to “…use it as a tool to boost employee morale and engagement,…creating a company-wide office pool that is free to enter and offers a free lunch or gift card for the winner (that) could help build camaraderie and encourage interaction among co-workers who many not typically cross paths.”

Unlike other sports that require you to have a vested knowledge of the game, March Madness does not discriminate on the amount you know about basketball.  Everyone has an equal chance at winning since there is not a lot of skill or expertise in predicting which teams will be victorious and which will be defeated.  Even the mildest of basketball fans have been known to cheer on the local teams and create solidarity and unity around the underdog.  With the NCAA tournament occurring during the traditional 40 hour work week schedule, employees are likely to join together cheering and booing in healthy competition.

Dynamic Office & Accounting Solutions wants you to share your March Madness!  What special considerations or promotions are you using to engage your staff?  What do you consider March Madness “worthy” among your employees and employers?  We want to know!