Are you excited for March Madness? More excited than everyone else you know? Want to bet on it? Before you answer that, you should probably check your company’s guidelines first. Workers across the country are researching stats, crunching numbers and calling their ESPN-addicted cousins in order to fill out their March Madness brackets. Yet, they might be unaware that 23 percent of employers have a written policy regarding gambling, and an additional 10 percent have an unwritten or understood policy, according to a recent survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). This figure might not sound significant, but in 2006 only 14 percent had a written policy and 7 percent had an unwritten policy, suggesting companies are watching workplace betting more than they used to. Companies who do have policies regarding gambling (and yes, putting money on March Madness counts) say the following: 83 percent prohibit any form of gambling on company premises 72 percent will take disciplinary action (not including termination) for violating the policy 70 percent prohibit gambling where money is exchanged 67 percent have provisions for termination if the gambling policy is violated Of all the events that workers bet on, Super Bowl ranks as the most popular and the NCAA college basketball tournament comes in second. (If you look at a CareerBuilder survey from last year, you’ll also see that people bet on some strange stuff. How odd? Well, they’ve bet on when a large pile of snow in the parking lot would melt and what co-workers cholesterol numbers would be.) What’s interesting is that 55 percent of employers consider office pools to have a positive impact on employee morale. Yet, 37 percent believe office pools have a negative impact on productivity. So betting in the office can make you happy but unproductive … take note, everyone

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