So is March Madness just a time-waster, or does it pay off in higher morale?

It’s time for March Madness. Do you know where your employees’ heads are?

According to a new CareerBuilder survey, approximately one in seven (15%) of U.S. workers said they plan to participate in office pools this year. Thatâs up from the 11% who planned to do so in 2014.

Twenty percent of all U.S workers said theyâve participated in an NCAA Tournament office pool in the past.

With an estimated 50 million Americans participating in March Madness office pools, companies stand to lose at least $1.2 billion for every unproductive work hour during the first week of the tournament, according to calculations by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

But there’s an ongoing argument over whether those “unproductive work hours” actually have value in terms of raising employee morale.

In a recent OfficeTeam survey, managers were asked: Do you feel March Madness activities in the workplace, such as watching games or participating in pools that don’t involve money, have a positive or negative impact on employee morale? Their responses:

Very positive — 9%
Somewhat positive — 41%
No impact — 43%
Somewhat negative — 5%, and
Very negative — 1%.

What about getting their work done? OfficeTeam asked managers: Do you feel March Madness activities in the workplace have a positive or negative impact on employee productivity? The responses:

Very positive — 6%
Somewhat positive — 30%
No impact — 49%
Somewhat negative — 13%, and
Very negative — 2%.

That’s 36% of survey participants who feel that the national basketball championship can actually spark productivity.

Who’s a player?

Workers in IT and sales lead all industries/professions in office pool participation. Here’s an expanded rundown from the CareerBuilder survey:

IT â 40%
Sales â 33%
Financial Services â 30%
Retail â 27%
Health Care (offices with more than 50 employees) â 19%, and
Leisure/Hospitality â 14%.

Other March Madness demographics from Career Builder:

Senior management (C-Levels, VPs, directors/managers/supervisors/team leaders) are far more likely to participate in office pools than entry-level, administrative, professional staff and technical employees â 27% vs. 19%.

Workers in the South and West participate at lower rates (18% and 17%, respectively) compared to workers in the Midwest and Northeast (26% and 23%, respectively).

Count your blessings

If you’re not charmed by the prospect of employees diving into the March Madness pools, look at it this way: It could be worse. CareerBuilder compiled a list of non-sporting related workplace pools, and some of them get a little, well, odd. Here’s the list:

Employees bet on who would become the next pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
Employees predicted when a colleagueâs current relationship would end.
Employees made Bingo cards of common complaints made by a coworker.
Employees guessed the number of protein coding genes in the human genome.
Employees bet on who would hookup with who at the company holiday party.
Employees predicted the weekly eliminations on the Bachelor reality TV competition.
Employees predicted the next coworker to quit.

For more HR News, please visit: So is March Madness just a time-waster, or does it pay off in higher morale?

Source: News from HR Morning