March Madness Translates into Office Mayhem
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. CREDIT: Basketball Image via Shutterstock |
This March, the madness will not be limited to the basketball court. That is because, according to new research, 38 percent of workers will yield to March Madness and watch the college basketball games at work, either by streaming them on their computer or on a television in the break room at the office. Surprisingly, that is a higher percentage than the 33 percent of all people who planned on watching at least one March Madness game.
Workers, however, are willing to go much further to be able to watch the games than simply streaming them. Almost one quarter of respondents, 24 percent, said they would skip work altogether in order to tune into the games. Of that group, 13 percent of workers said they would use paid time off when skipping work while 11 percent said they would take off because they knew they wouldn’t get caught.
Lost work productivity, however, does not stop with simply watching the games. According to the research, which was conducted by coupon website CouponCabin, 45 percent of workers admitted to researching information to fill out their brackets while at work. Nearly a quarter of respondents, 23 percent, stated they would spend between one and two hours researching their picks at work, while 21 percent said they would spend more than two hours doing their research at work.
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"March Madness is an exciting time of year for many sports fans, but the cost of lost productivity at work can be high," said Jackie Warrick, president of CouponCabin.com. "If you're going to be distracted by the tournament, make sure it doesn't affect the quality of your work and cost your company losses in productivity. Use your time away from work to follow the games or talk to your manager about taking time off to enjoy the matchups."
This research was based on the responses of 2,307 working adults who planned on watching at least one NCAA Tournament game.
Reach BusinessNewsDaily staff writer David Mielach at Dmielach@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @D_M89.