By Jason Hancock

If you believe the estimates of how March Madness can drain office productivity, the business world is taking a terrible beating this month.

One group forecast that employers could lose $1.2 billion or more during the 19-day NCAA basketball tournament while fans tweak their office-pool brackets, check scores on Web sites, watch games on television or tune into free streaming video of the contests on their office computers (the high-speed connection is so much faster than on my computer at home).

But luckily for Iowa companies, local colleges and universities threw them a life raft by failing to make any postseason tournaments.

“I think if just one of our teams made it to the tournament, we would probably have to send out a reminder notice of our company policy,” Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield spokesman Gary Peterson said with a tinge of disappointment in his voice. Yes, Drake, Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa’s collective fall from grace this basketball season took a lot of the temptation out of March Madness in Des Moines.

But that didn’t stop some from taking precautions to try to avoid the loss of a precious workday.

Principal Financial Group Inc. has taken the step of actually blocking certain Web sites that may stream live updates from the games.

“Viewing games online takes up an enormous amount of network bandwidth,” said Rhonda Clark-Leyda, media relations officer at Principal. “As such, Web sites that show the games have been blocked. However, if it’s in line with corporate guidelines for Internet usage, employees can watch the scores online.”

Basically, as long as you’re only updating your bracket at lunch or during scheduled breaks, you will have no worries.

“There are TVs in the break room, which is also where the bathrooms are,” said Stephanie Pearl, director of human resources at Brokers International Ltd. “So they are able to keep track of games throughout the day without losing work time.”

Some workers may spend up to two hours a day following tournament games, according to a survey by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which put out the $1.2 billion productivity-loss estimate.

But the same survey found that only 6 percent of companies plan to take steps to prevent workers from accessing sports-related Web sites to follow their favorite teams.

The other 94 percent of companies either do not consider productivity loss during the tournament a problem, or they allow the March Madness distraction as a reward for hard work the rest of the year.

“It’s really something a company has to determine for itself,” Pearl said. “Some see it as a morale booster and others believe it cuts a significant amount of productivity. It depends on the organization.”

Peterson said at Wellmark, employee pools aren’t allowed, which has been the policy for as long as he can remember. Clark-Leyda said Principal sent out a reminder to all employees letting them know how the company’s policy worked in regard to “gambling.”

The reminder, which was posted on the company’s intranet, stated that Iowa law specifically allows certain limited social gambling in unlicensed circumstances. Individuals may participate in gambling if “a bona fide social relationship exists among the participants.”

The reminder goes on to say that the law requires that a participant may not win or lose more than $50 in a 24-hour period in one or more pools. Therefore, an office pool that pays more than $50 to the participant who had the highest number of correct picks on game outcomes during the NCAA basketball tournament, or any other sporting event, is unlawful and is a serious misdemeanor under Iowa law.

So, gambling is permitted, as long as you don’t win very much money.

“While Principal doesn’t encourage office pools, we do understand that they can bring camaraderie and fun competition to the workplace,” Clark-Leyda said. “We stress the importance of following social gambling laws and the importance of employees respecting one another, including those not wanting to participate.”

Twenty-three percent of businesses, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, turn what could be an annual workplace negative into a positive. Some companies use the games, many of which are played during work hours, to strengthen the workplace team and morale.

No local companies would admit to any such shenanigans. But they did acknowledge having loyalties to one of the four Iowa teams. Coincidence? We may never know, the way certain teams are playing.

Fear not, Iowans. It’s less than a month before the football teams show up for spring practice.