Unless you weed out NFL fans during hiring, this coming Monday may bring a Super Bowl productivity problem.
The commonly held belief is that the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday is one of the least productive days for employees. This could stem from excited co-workers talking about their Super Bowl parties and the game, hungover employees dragging their feet or a combination of both.
Just look at these two huge stats:
- Employers lose between $820 or $850 million due to employees talking about the game, and
- 1.5 million people call in sick the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday.
The latter statistic encouraged one man to create an official White House petition to make the Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday. It’s just 88,996 more signatures short of warranting an official response from President Obama, as of this posting.
How bad is it really?
Though the stats seem a bit alarming, it’s important to remember that other activities are just as much a drain on productivity as the Super Bowl. AOL Jobs points out that if you calculate the entire workforce’s loss of productivity when it comes to using the bathroom, eating out and talking about their weekends with co-workers, it would add up to hundreds of billions of dollars lost due to unproductive behavior.
It puts things in perspective when worrying about the supposed unproductive Monday after the Super Bowl. However, if loss of productivity is something you’re looking to fix for this coming Monday, try rolling out a new project: Ban email for the week. One CEO did this and found that his staff’s behavior changed and productivity soared. What better time to start than Super Bowl Monday?
Do you have suggestions or proven methods for combating Super Bowl productivity problems? Let us know in the comments below.
