April 2, 2007
Sports and the Workplace
By Tom Ryan
Between office pools, fantasy leagues and general “fanaticism,” sports may be contributing to a decline in worker productivity.
The Chicago outplacement consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas (CGC) recently estimated $1.2 billion will be lost in U.S. office productivity due to the ongoing NCAA tournament. (The final game, Florida State vs. Ohio State, takes place tonight.) Based on a Gallup Poll finding that 29 percent of Americans consider themselves college basketball fans, CGC estimated that 22.9 million workers are likely to spend work time surfing March Madness related internet sites or watching games on TV. Moreover, many workers will be spending even more time picking teams or updating brackets of office pools.
Last fall, the same firm estimated fantasy football could be costing employers $1.1 billion weekly. CGC estimated 37 million people played fantasy football last year, and a survey found two-thirds of fantasy football participants spend at least five hours per week managing their teams.
Meanwhile, a new comprehensive study of sports fans by Sporting News finds many employees are researching, discussing or otherwise obsessing about their sports teams during work time. Among those identifying themselves as “heavy sports enthusiasts,” 45 percent either agreed completely or mostly with the statement “they probably spend too much time at work reading or thinking about sports,” while 74 percent indicated “they often talk about last night’s game with co-workers.” If their team is playing a late game, 79 percent of heavy enthusiasts said they will “stay up to watch it” and 67 percent indicated they regularly check sports web sites during the workday. If their favorite team loses, 56 percent of heavy enthusiasts said, “it really affects my mood.”
As expected, those describing themselves as “light enthusiasts” are affected by sports to a significantly lesser degree. The study found heavy sports enthusiasts spend on average over 31 hours a week following sports and light enthusiasts, 5.5 hours.
On the positive side, a high number of both heavy and light enthusiasts agreed that sports build character and teaches positive values. For example, 64 percent of light and 85 percent of heavy enthusiasts believe participating in sports builds self-esteem. In the same vein, 54 percent of light and 80 percent of heavy enthusiasts agreed that participating in sports teaches you to accept responsibility.
“It’s becoming more apparent in today’s society that regardless of life’s general time constraints, a true sports fan is incredibly dedicated to his or her favorite sport in a deeply passionate way,” said Ed Baker, the publisher of Sporting News.
Also on a more positive note, CSG said that although some firms are monitoring employee computer activities around office pools and fantasy leagues, such activities can enhance office morale.
“Companies rightly figure that many workers are going to be distracted by March Madness,” John Challenger, chief executive officer of CSG told Florida Today. “So why not take advantage of the situation to build morale and camaraderie among the staff?”
Discussion Questions: Do you think sports fanaticism has a positive or negative influence on the work environment? What should companies be doing to protect themselves from the negative effects while capitalizing on its positive effects? Have you felt the impact of sports fanaticism in your work environment?
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If employees are excited and bonding at work, is that more or less expensive than taking them offsite to a team building exercise? Cheering for alma maters and/or local teams, watching the underdog team beat the established program, and seeing that the game isn’t over until the last buzzer are lessons that can carry over to employee’s work habits. The question is whether management uses the activity to their benefit or not.
Its depends on how you look at it. Giving employees time off, and often paid time off, for holidays and vacation is costly as well. Time wasted at work on sports issues in our culture is almost looked upon as a holiday at work. If it keeps morale up, I don’t see much harm in it. If losses are significant then employers need to figure better ways to tie wages with productivity. No work, no pay.
Sports in the workplace, including the widespread participation in fantasy leagues, are not necessarily a bad thing. Sports should not be a convenient scapegoat for loss of time and effective, proper management. Sports fanaticism, as long as it’s not addictive or hostile, is one of the veritable social unifiers of real people, even those that work together in an office, retail, or labor environment. When the workplace provides the right amount of work for each employee and when each employee is well managed and supervised to be sure that work objectives are being recognized, met, and achieved, then rest assured; sports in the workplace will more than likely serve as a positive and enjoyable and much needed distraction to help keep real people relaxed, refreshed, and actually enjoying their work environment. Our society and our workplaces already have an unfortunate amount of stress that comes from improper balance of work and effective social compatibility but sports help to be a positive diversion.
Sports, in general, tie people together. It’s the same in a business environment. It brings people from different departments, ranks and other companies together through shared interests.
Employees that have time to check brackets, scores and update fantasy football rosters simply have the time to do this. If they weren’t spending time doing that, they would spend it doing something else non-work related.
Best Buy’s new results orientated scheduling puts a twist on this survey. If an employee is a top producer meeting goals, what’s the loss from checking scores? If an employee is checking scores and not producing/meeting goals, then there is a problem. It takes one person two hours to complete a job. It takes another person one hour to complete the same job. It really depends upon how each company defines wasted time.
The impact is probably more negative than positive, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
I don’t recall the exact statistics, but most surveys indicate two important facts that relate to this issue.
>A typical employee isn’t giving 100% of their time and attention in the workplace to their job.
>There can be a one- to four-fold difference in productivity from the least to the most productive employee.
Since there’s significant upside potential in the contribution of most employees, why not use enthusiasm around major sporting events as a way to motivate employees and improve relationships with them? This way, employers can make real lemonade out of lemons.
We are certainly a nation of sports enthusiasts, but the level of distraction it creates in our workplace pales in comparison to other countries I have worked in. Topping the list would have to be Australia, a famous nation of “punters” (wagerers) where Melbourne Cup Day (our Kentucky Derby) is a rostered day off for all employees.
We may be addressing a symptom of the larger issue here as well. Sports is just one of the entertainment diversions offered by digital media. The real hit to productivity came when we merged our principal working tool, the computer, with a powerful “alternative content” delivery system. Talk about tempting the sinners!
Sports and interest in sporting events has been around in the workplace for over 100 years. So when did it become problematic for workers to follow a sports team? Maybe it is the computer age that has created the changes in productivity, and not sports.
So should we monitor and eliminate at-work use of computers for anything other than work related activities?. How much time is wasted by workers scanning the net and in blogs, searches and other non work related internet activities?
I’m not sure it is fair to connect only sports to the issue of worker efficiencies, and as many have stated there is a real unity of workers around their local team and that leads to greater worker connectivity which improves workplace success.
Taken to the extreme, ANYTHING can be negative. However, when monitored, managed, controlled, etc.–it is an opportunity to allow employees to interact with each other and possibly share and learn about each other’s roles and functions in a positive way. Are so-called “Holiday Parties” a drain or cost on corporate coffers?…Sure…but is there a value to them?…certainly many companies view it that way!
Hanging around the water cooler and talking about politics, sports, the weather, etc. is not ALL negative (nor is it ALL good). It is a matter of incorporating it into a series of behaviors and interactions.
I have to confess that sports fanaticism has indeed affected my workplace. As a complete sports illiterate, I must take pains to include my sports savant business partner (female) in as many meetings and networking events as possible. That way, when I fall mute at “How ‘bout those (insert team)?” she’ll be able jump in and take it enthusiastically from there. She absorbs sports-related information through her skin, I’ve decided, since I’ve yet to see her pick up a sports section or watch a game start to finish; however, watch her go as she ponders obscure college-level dynamics with someone at the airport! The benefits to our business, then are two-fold: No sports down time; complete sports know-how.
I really hate these kinds of studies that try to put a dollar figure on “lost productivity” due to things like March Madness. It first assumes that they would have spent that time working–which is not a fair assumption. As Bill points out, no one spends 100% of their work time actually working.
And though I can’t find them to cite them, I know I’ve seen studies that also show that having opportunities to push away from the desk or change mental gears can actually make people MORE productive when they’re in their work “zone.” So as long as the work that needs to be done is getting done, employers should think of these things more like mental refreshers than distractors.
The real challenge in today’s politically correct work environment is in making sure that people who don’t like the sport don’t get shut out of the camaraderie or feel like they’re disadvantaged in some way because they don’t participate.
If people weren’t talking and thinking about sports, they might be talking and thinking about Anna Nicole Smith or the weather or Iraq or the traffic. Employers do best when they can measure their people’s productivity. If your #1 salesperson is a sports fanatic, why worry?
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If employees are excited and bonding at work, is that more or less expensive than taking them offsite to a team building exercise? Cheering for alma maters and/or local teams, watching the underdog team beat the established program, and seeing that the game isn’t over until the last buzzer are lessons that can carry over to employee’s work habits. The question is whether management uses the activity to their benefit or not.
Its depends on how you look at it. Giving employees time off, and often paid time off, for holidays and vacation is costly as well. Time wasted at work on sports issues in our culture is almost looked upon as a holiday at work. If it keeps morale up, I don’t see much harm in it. If losses are significant then employers need to figure better ways to tie wages with productivity. No work, no pay.
Sports in the workplace, including the widespread participation in fantasy leagues, are not necessarily a bad thing. Sports should not be a convenient scapegoat for loss of time and effective, proper management. Sports fanaticism, as long as it’s not addictive or hostile, is one of the veritable social unifiers of real people, even those that work together in an office, retail, or labor environment. When the workplace provides the right amount of work for each employee and when each employee is well managed and supervised to be sure that work objectives are being recognized, met, and achieved, then rest assured; sports in the workplace will more than likely serve as a positive and enjoyable and much needed distraction to help keep real people relaxed, refreshed, and actually enjoying their work environment. Our society and our workplaces already have an unfortunate amount of stress that comes from improper balance of work and effective social compatibility but sports help to be a positive diversion.
Sports, in general, tie people together. It’s the same in a business environment. It brings people from different departments, ranks and other companies together through shared interests.
Employees that have time to check brackets, scores and update fantasy football rosters simply have the time to do this. If they weren’t spending time doing that, they would spend it doing something else non-work related.
Best Buy’s new results orientated scheduling puts a twist on this survey. If an employee is a top producer meeting goals, what’s the loss from checking scores? If an employee is checking scores and not producing/meeting goals, then there is a problem. It takes one person two hours to complete a job. It takes another person one hour to complete the same job. It really depends upon how each company defines wasted time.
The impact is probably more negative than positive, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
I don’t recall the exact statistics, but most surveys indicate two important facts that relate to this issue.
>A typical employee isn’t giving 100% of their time and attention in the workplace to their job.
>There can be a one- to four-fold difference in productivity from the least to the most productive employee.
Since there’s significant upside potential in the contribution of most employees, why not use enthusiasm around major sporting events as a way to motivate employees and improve relationships with them? This way, employers can make real lemonade out of lemons.
We are certainly a nation of sports enthusiasts, but the level of distraction it creates in our workplace pales in comparison to other countries I have worked in. Topping the list would have to be Australia, a famous nation of “punters” (wagerers) where Melbourne Cup Day (our Kentucky Derby) is a rostered day off for all employees.
We may be addressing a symptom of the larger issue here as well. Sports is just one of the entertainment diversions offered by digital media. The real hit to productivity came when we merged our principal working tool, the computer, with a powerful “alternative content” delivery system. Talk about tempting the sinners!
Sports and interest in sporting events has been around in the workplace for over 100 years. So when did it become problematic for workers to follow a sports team? Maybe it is the computer age that has created the changes in productivity, and not sports.
So should we monitor and eliminate at-work use of computers for anything other than work related activities?. How much time is wasted by workers scanning the net and in blogs, searches and other non work related internet activities?
I’m not sure it is fair to connect only sports to the issue of worker efficiencies, and as many have stated there is a real unity of workers around their local team and that leads to greater worker connectivity which improves workplace success.
Taken to the extreme, ANYTHING can be negative. However, when monitored, managed, controlled, etc.–it is an opportunity to allow employees to interact with each other and possibly share and learn about each other’s roles and functions in a positive way. Are so-called “Holiday Parties” a drain or cost on corporate coffers?…Sure…but is there a value to them?…certainly many companies view it that way!
Hanging around the water cooler and talking about politics, sports, the weather, etc. is not ALL negative (nor is it ALL good). It is a matter of incorporating it into a series of behaviors and interactions.
I have to confess that sports fanaticism has indeed affected my workplace. As a complete sports illiterate, I must take pains to include my sports savant business partner (female) in as many meetings and networking events as possible. That way, when I fall mute at “How ‘bout those (insert team)?” she’ll be able jump in and take it enthusiastically from there. She absorbs sports-related information through her skin, I’ve decided, since I’ve yet to see her pick up a sports section or watch a game start to finish; however, watch her go as she ponders obscure college-level dynamics with someone at the airport! The benefits to our business, then are two-fold: No sports down time; complete sports know-how.
I really hate these kinds of studies that try to put a dollar figure on “lost productivity” due to things like March Madness. It first assumes that they would have spent that time working–which is not a fair assumption. As Bill points out, no one spends 100% of their work time actually working.
And though I can’t find them to cite them, I know I’ve seen studies that also show that having opportunities to push away from the desk or change mental gears can actually make people MORE productive when they’re in their work “zone.” So as long as the work that needs to be done is getting done, employers should think of these things more like mental refreshers than distractors.
The real challenge in today’s politically correct work environment is in making sure that people who don’t like the sport don’t get shut out of the camaraderie or feel like they’re disadvantaged in some way because they don’t participate.
If people weren’t talking and thinking about sports, they might be talking and thinking about Anna Nicole Smith or the weather or Iraq or the traffic. Employers do best when they can measure their people’s productivity. If your #1 salesperson is a sports fanatic, why worry?