The Price of Packer Mania?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is highlighting the cost of Packer Mania.

It attempts to put a damper on what the euphoria being felt by Wisconsin Packer fans means for employers.

How much time do you spend at work on the Packers?

Team's run to the Super Bowl costs state employers millions in lost time

Note that statement.

The Journal Sentinel states as FACT that the Packers' success is costing state employers millions in lost time.

The problem is that "FACT" is not known to be true at all.

The Packers are a giant distraction to Wisconsin workers this week. But wise employers aren't about to complain.

If every Wisconsin worker spent one hour of their work week obsessing about Sunday's NFC championship game at Lambeau Field, the state could lose $40 million in worker productivity. That's ten times the estimated $4 million that the game will shovel into the Green Bay economy.

But experts advise employers to harness this diversion, not rein it in.

Indeed, Aarrowcast Inc., a foundry in Shawano, is scheduling a long break in its production shift Sunday evening. Employees who live close can run home, watch the game, and return to finish the shift. Others can stay and catch it on the TV in the company's lunchroom.

"We've got about 300 people and they're all focused on one thing - and that's the Packers kicking the Giants' butts," said Ben Grigg, Aarowcast's president. "And that's exciting. And there is a lot of noise, but we see that as a positive energy and something that we sort of go with."

Bay Towel, a Green Bay-based linen and uniform business, is urging route drivers to don green and gold this week in solidarity with customers - and their 185 fellow workers.

"That's the only time we let them out of uniform, because we are a uniform company," said Paul Linzmeyer, Bay Towel's president. "Otherwise, they forget why all of us are scrambling like madmen." Linzmeyer expects a lot of hectic overtime this week accommodating hotel and restaurants in the Green Bay area.

"Whether or not you take advantage of it, people are going to be talking about it anyway. So we incorporate it into something positive," said Bill Van Den Brandt, corporate communications manager for Appleton, the papermaker that extended a lunch hour last week and threw a Packers tailgate party for its 1,200 workers in Appleton.

...Based on the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data, if each Wisconsin worker spent one hour at work rhapsodizing over the Packers, scrounging for tickets or scouting the Giants' offensive tendencies, state employers collectively would lose $39.7 million in wages.

That's based on a median hourly wage of $14.49. Of course, not every worker is dwelling on the Packers this week, and a one-hour average might be conservative. The estimated productivity loss varies by geography, according to the size of work force and the median pay. Applying the same calculation on just the metropolitan New York area would amount to a productivity loss exceeding $93 million.

A big supposition is that an hour at work contemplating the Packers otherwise would have been productive.

That is a "big supposition."

It seems to me that the Journal Sentinel is CREATING an issue out of nothing.

The numbers are silly. They aren't grounded in anything real.

..."We haven't had members calling and expressing concern about distractions or anything like that," said Mary Hunter, a senior human resources director for MRA-The Management Association Inc.

..."I don't hear anybody that I'm aware of complaining about lost productivity," said Jim Golembeski, executive director of the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, in Green Bay. "There's a lot of ways in which productivity is lost other than the fact that we've got a championship game coming up. The winter doldrums, the cold weather. And this just boosts everybody's spirits."

In sum--

It's a stupid article.

Lost productivity, lost shmoductivity.

Stick to the facts.