March Madness is the time of the year when America is electrified to college basketball, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Every spring America engages in what Obama termed the March Madness as a “national pastime” with tens of millions of its fellow citizens.  It’s about fans checking in with Sunday Selection, filling out brackets carefully and watching with fingers crossed.

However, the tournament has the potential of significantly reducing productivity at work as employees busy themselves streaming videos, checking games scores and filling out brackets. Streaming basketball games will result in extensive bandwidth hogging, slowing down the Internet speed and ultimately impacting the productivity of the rest of the employees.

According to a survey just released by MSN, 86% of respondents plan to devote some time during their work day to follow games, scores and updates, this being a 5% increase from last year (81%).

What can you do?

1. Block sites that will stream the games, using Internet blocking and filtering software
2. Allow employees access to the Internet, but closely monitor their browsing activity with Internet monitoring and tracking solutions
3. Alternatively, you can take advantage of March Madness, to build team spirit, allowing employees limited access to the relevant sites at specific times of the day. Implement an Internet Quota Limit, allowing users an assigned time of Internet usage for the day.