Whether you're a basketball fan or not, for those of us living in Maine we can expect that worker's focus will be more on the NCAA tournament rather than on job productivity.

If you think I'm just shooting from the hip, because I'm not a big fan of March Madness, in fact, I'm not a fan at all, then think again.

According to our friends at WalletHub.com, 70 million tournament brackets were completed last year which amounted to about $10.4 billion wagered in total.

Some estimate that that amount is about twice as much as during the Super Bowl.

Well-known billionaire investor, Warren Buffet, who is also a long-time basketball fan, offered Berkshire Hathaway employees $1 million a year for life to anyone who guessed which teams would make it to the NCAA men's basketball tournament's "Sweet 16."

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How would you like to cash in on that kind of a prediction?

If you're into spending time with your co-workers and friends on filling in sports brackets and exchanging cash, that's cool. If that's your thing.

However, according to WalletHub, it has a huge impact on business productivity. It's been stated that unproductive workers during March Madness amounted to an estimated $6.3 billion in corporate losses last year.

What's interesting, is that Seyfarth Shaw at Work found that March Madness ranked number three among tech-related office distractions, directly behind texting and Facebook.

The subsidiary of the law firm Seyfarth Shaw conducted a poll of more than 400 managers and human resources specials which is how they came up with these statistics.

Even though 81-percent of HR professionals said that their organizations don't have policies to police office pools, employees are happy to leave well enough alone.

WalletHub concluded that 90-percent of workers did agree that March Madness was good for public morale.

So, in closing, I guess one could say, based on these statistics, that employee morale is costing companies $6.3 billion a year.

That's a lot of money to budget every year for employee morale. This far trumps the Christmas office party expenses at the end of the year for sure.

Interesting, to say the least.

 

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