March Madness: Should businesses crack down?

Employees focus tirelessly on spreadsheets. (If you're watching CBS webcasts of games and a supervisor walks by, you can hit the "Boss Button" and a fake Excel spreadsheet appears. CBS says the button was hit nearly 2.8 million times last year).

A new study says employers could lose $1.8 billion in productivity during the NCAA Tournament's first week.

Most companies do not establish special guidelines for March Madness,  nor do they block access to all video streaming sites, the Society for Human Resources Management said.

But at least one Atlanta firm won't fall victim to the Madness.

T. Vanderbilt, a marketing and public relations firm, uses software called Spector Pro to track every website visited by its 16 employees and flag inappropriate use. The software also blocks streaming video.

"I'm not going to be OK with employees streaming it on a computer," president Thomas Vanderbilt said of the tournament, though he noted the firm has a "pretty intense" office pool. "It can consume you."

"A few extra breaks to check the TV? I'm OK with that," he continued. "I'm not cool with you doing it at your cubicle, with your headphones on. You get lost in it. We don't do this top-down. I'm abiding by it so everyone should."

The firm installed the software five years ago following "a theft issue with an accounting employee," Vanderbilt said. T. Vanderbilt is one of 50,000 organizations that use products by SpectorSoft, based in Vero Beach, Fla.

"Everybody signed agreements and after about two days people forget the software is there until it's brought to their attention that they've done something the software has flagged."

Vanderbilt said he had no problem with 15 minutes of Web surfing, "but if you spend an hour and a half reviewing sports scores and the like, it's a problem."

The NCAA Tournament gets underway in earnest Thursday, March 18. Conference tournaments have begun, with the March Madness field of 65 to be revealed Sunday. More than $2.5 billion will be wagered on office pools, according to estimates.

Many of the 32 first-round games March 18-19 will take place during business hours.

Also Sunday, CBS will unveil its 2010 Boss Button image. Some have speculated it will be an ad for CBS' Facebook page. Last year it was a Comcast ad disguised as a spreadsheet.

A global consulting firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, predicts the tournament's impact on productivity each year. It cited a 2009 Microsoft/MSN survey that 45 percent of Americans planned to enter at least one college basketball pool last year. And according to Nielsen, 92 percent of fans who watched games online during the 2008 tournament did so from work computers.

"Those who insist there will be no impact are kidding themselves," CEO John Challenger said.

Still, he doesn't see a big crackdown coming.

"Especially in this economy, when many employees are already anxious about their jobs, there is no reason for employers to make a big deal about what amounts to a blip on the productivity radar," Challenger said.

"In fact, with worker stress and anxiety heightened, a little distraction could be just what the doctor ordered," he continued. "Companies can use this event as a way to build morale and camaraderie. This could mean putting televisions in the break room, so employees have somewhere to watch the games other than the Internet. Employers might consider organizing a company-wide pool, which should have no entry fee in order to avoid ethical and/or legal questions."

percent of fans who watched games online during the 2008 tournament did so from work computers.