What’s the hottest employment law issue in the world right now?  Believe it or not, it is . . .

ARE YOU READY FOR MARCH MADNESS?

Beginning next week, every single NCAA basketball tournament game will be available live online. Employers have three options: (1) ignore the madness, (2) try to stop it or (3) embrace it.

The following is a detailed and highly scientific analysis of those three approaches, along with our recommendations.

Ignore the Madness. This is the option selected by most employers. They pretend as if what is arguably humankind’s most significant annual event never even happens. They can’t figure out why employee attendance suddenly drops precipitously in mid-March or why the few employees who actually come to work start traveling in packs wearing identical colors and disappearing into conference rooms from which occasional cheering and shouting can be heard. These employers are also surprised when the hopelessly overloaded IT system eventually blows up, prompting a mass exodus of employees in search of the nearest sports bar. The Verdict?  Not recommended.

Stop the Madness. Due to IT and productivity concerns, some employers try to put an end to the madness by banning all employees from even thinking about basketball in the workplace. Some even put fancy filters on their IT system to prevent employees from watching the games online. Typically, however, these employers’ computer systems will be just fine even without the filters because only a handful of employees will show up for work. The Verdict?  Not recommended.

Embrace the Madness. Some forward-looking employers take advantage of the situation and make an effort to incorporate March Madness into the whole work experience. To avoid IT meltdowns, they set up TVs in key gathering areas for certain games and encourage employees to do some bonding while whooping it for their favorite teams. Good feelings abound and grateful employees put in extra hours out of gratitude to the company. The Verdict?  Recommended.

Here’s a poll to help you get in the spirit of the games. Thanks in advance for expressing yourselves. In addition, check out this March Mayhem Bracket for Employers, a rather creative attempt to determine the #1 employment law headache facing companies.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 9:59 am and is filed under March Madness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.