ANTenna Blog -- Internet/Web

As March Madness starts this week, a lot of people will be online at work, filling in and checking brackets as well as watching the games -- and this goes on for weeks. Should you be concerned about how your company could be affected?

The annual frenzy that is March Madness begins Thursday, and with that comes a lot of time spent on the computer that isn't exactly work-related. Online brackets get filled in at the last minute, and this year, you can watch the games on CBSSports.com in high-definition with Microsoft's Silverlight.

How does all this activity affect your business? The most obvious is your employees aren't being productive. And while they're catching up on the flurry of games -- especially those first couple of days -- not only are your workers not working but they're hogging the network bandwidth and making your business susceptible to threats.

A way to keep a handle on your employees is to be strict about network use policies. Make sure your staff know that the computers are not their own and that you have a right to monitor what Web sites they visit.

But let's face it -- a happy employee is often a more productive one. And some, if not many, people are perfectly capable of finishing up projects on time in addition to checking on their brackets and watching some basketball highlights. Chris Young from The Rainmaker Group points out the time and effort it would cost to actually monitor your employees during March Madness. So it might be wise to follow the adage, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" -- embrace March Madness and sponsor some sort of event or poll. Young even recommends scheduling a break a few times a week devoted to March Madness.

"Camaraderie can play a huge factor in the effort to retain employees," he said, "and this is a great way to for team members as they get to know each other by talking about where they went to college, who their favorite teams are, or who the next Lebron James is going to be."

The takeaway for this is: Make sure your employees are aware of what is expected of them and what happens to the company network when they shop on Cyber Monday or fill out brackets on the third Thursday in March. But ensure they know you want them to be happy -- and then prove it.