NBA – According to an estimate by “Challenger, Gray & Christmas”, an American consulting firm, the university tournament would lower the productivity of employees in the United States… while strengthening cohesion in the professional context.
So much so that the turnover of American companies drops at this time of year, since the matches take place all day in the United States, then logically leading to a drop in concentration and therefore in the productivity of employees on their places of work.
This year, the estimated financial losses “due to” March Madness are $17.3 billion over the whole country, according to the estimate from the consulting firm “Challenger, Gray & Christmas”.
To estimate this total, the firm first relied on data provided by the American Bureau Of Labor Statistics, which reports that in February 2023, nearly 160,315,000 Americans were employed in the country, with a average wage (non-agricultural private sector) per hour of $33.09. Then, as a comparative basis, the firm then relied on two surveys carried out in the United States in 2018 and 2019: the first reporting that 48% of employees claimed to complete their “bracket” or follow matches during their working hours. work, the second specifying that these employees spent an average of 25.5 minutes there per working day.
The solution ? Incorporating “March Madness” into a workday
This would therefore give for this year, assuming that these data are unchanged: 76,951,200 American employees (48% of the total of 160,315,000) who fulfill their “brackets” or follow matches during their working hours, for a financial loss of $2.55 billion per hour (33 09*76 951 200).
And over the entire tournament, which includes 16 working days during the week between the “Selection Sunday” of March 12 and the final scheduled for Monday April 3, i.e. 408 minutes (25.5*16) or 6.8 hours , this gives this enormous total estimated precisely at 17.3 billion dollars. That is one billion more than last year, when the estimate was 16.3 billion dollars.
Faced with the observation that American employees are losing concentration and efficiency at work, each year at the time of “March Madness”, Andrew Challenger, vice-president of the firm, then encourages them to take the bull by the horns.
« March Madness is a great vector of bonds and cohesion within teams in the world of work, particularly in the era of hybrid work and teleworking
he says, citing for example a dedicated break to follow a game in the break room, a “bracket” to be completed for each department of a team with rewards, or even designated days during which each employee would wear the colors of his favorite team.
« Create events at work around March Madness […] makes work more pleasant, both for on-site and remote teams he concludes.
