Risk Management Monitor addresses the concern about employees spending hours of company time researching and updating their fantasy football picks. Some argue that it’s disruptive – having fired employees or blocked access to certain websites from the company network – while others suggest it boosts morale.
Riskczar believes that fantasy football is merely another workplace distraction. If people were not spending their workday on sports betting, they might be wasting time on Facebook or Twitter. And in places where those sites are banned, your employees may be reading the online version of the Wall Street Journal, shopping on Amazon or searching for a new job on Monster. If we transport ourselves back to 1990 before the Internets, people used to hang out by the water cooler talking about football or the latest episodes Cheers and the Cosby Show. Unengaged employees have always found a way to slack off. Technology didn’t create that.
And what goes for the workplace often goes for the classroom. When I returned to school in 2001, only a couple of people had wireless Internet access from their laptops. One professor was upset that the surfing was going on and wanted to turn off the connection. Here’s my take: before wifi, people brought laptops to class and played Solitaire and before that people passed notes around or doodled on their hands. Today they probably play on their iPhones or BlackBerry devices. Unengaged students will always find a way to pass the time. Technology didn’t create that.
But in the end does it really matter what your employees are doing with their time so long as all of their work is getting done on time?
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