The NCAA’s annual basketball championship tournament, and the nationwide enthusiasm known as “March Madness” that accompanies it, is underway.
Executive outplacement firm Challenger, Grey & Christmas Inc., estimates that 60 million Americans are filling out brackets and placing bets on the winners, costing the country about $1.9 billion in lost productivity as employees shift their attention from work to wagers.
But Forbes contributor Lee Igel warns against fretting about distracted workers.
“It is, at best, a 20th century way of thinking,” he said, noting that happy workers are productive workers and suggesting that banning workplace enthusiasm sends the wrong message.
Indeed, data from online food-ordering service GrubHub indicates that more companies are ordering in for the games.
Over the past two years of March Madness, the number of workplace orders during weekday games has risen by 7 percent, as employers see the unavoidable distraction as a morale-building opportunity, GrubHub reports.
During the 2013 and 2014 March Madness seasons, publishing and education companies embraced game day food delivery with particular enthusiasm, with orders during games rising 62 percent and 58 percent, respectively, compared with usual orders.
Unlike Super Bowl ordering, which favors pizza and, above all, chicken wings, March Madness favorites tend to lean toward Tex-Mex, Italian and Japanese, although iced coffee orders also rose 31 percent during the past two NCAA basketball championship tournaments. Sales of other typical American dishes also spike during the tournament.
