March Madness Causes Major Decrease in Office Productivity

March 18, 2013

March Madness is almost upon us! Marking one of the biggest weeks of the year for sports fans, March Madness creates a bit of conflict when it comes to completing work hours while still catching all the games. According to new research from online meeting software TeamViewer, March Madness will actually be one of the biggest distractions at work this year.

In a survey of 500 American office workers, TeamViewer found that 74 percent of Americans have already admitted that March Madness is going to affect their work productivity, and 68 percent said they would rather work from home during the week. Another 19 percent admitted that they would be streaming games while at work, while 52 percent will be reading sports news, 37 percent will be using their mobile devices to keep track of games, and 21 percent will be watching March Madness from a TV at work.

Almost half said they would be spending more than an hour of work time keeping track of March Madness games a day, while 8 percent said they would spend more than five hours, and 4 percent said it would take up their entire day.

There are ways for managers to make the most of this, and maybe even boost office morale as a whole. TeamViewer suggests that companies get into the spirit of March Madness with at-work activities and bracket challenges. In fact, 86 percent of those surveyed say there are larger benefits to encouraging employees to participate in these types of activities, including feeling like a team (56 percent), reducing missed work days (44 percent) and building employee loyalty (46 percent). However, more than half still say their workplace would become more desirable if they were allowed to work from home during March Madness.

Do You Know What You're Worth?

If you’re looking for your own March Madness distractions, be sure to check out our Salary Madness report tomorrow. We’ve analyzed who would win this year’s men’s college basketball championship if the rankings were based on alumni salaries. If you can guess which basketball powerhouse brings home the biggest bucks, you might even win a $100 Amazon gift card.

Tell Us What You Think

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