Ah, fall. Leaves turning colors, the air getting cooler… and the start of fantasy football season. If you’re not familiar with the phenomenon, all you need to do is Google “fantasy sports” and 22 million sites will appear. Now try searching “fantasy football.” Yep, 121 million! You may not be participating in the fantasy sports trend, but you can be sure some of your staff members are – and they may be doing it while they should be working.

Fantasy sports is a numbers-based challenge where a selected group of participants builds teams of individual players from a chosen professional sport. The organizers of these fantasy leagues (called “commissioners”) set the rules, and the participants rely on the players they’ve picked to accumulate the most points over the length of a season. If betting is involved, the participants pay a predetermined amount, and the participants with the best statistics at the end of the season win. The game has Web giants like Yahoo! involved, with Fantasy on Yahoo! Sports getting loads of traffic.

Should you be worried about your staff playing fantasy sports in the workplace? Maybe … and maybe not. If you’re worried that employees playing fantasy sports during work hours could cause lost productivity or friction between workers, then you have every legal right to prohibit such activity. If money is changing hands, many employers consider fantasy sports a form of gambling, which can be even more reason to put a stop to it. Whether you choose to ban fantasy sports or not, make sure you spell your policies out in your employee handbook so there are no misunderstandings or discrimination issues later.

There is a positive side to fantasy sports if you choose to allow it in your business. If you set some restrictions (such as allowing employees to check their scores and stats on scheduled breaks only), allowing employees to participate in group activities such as fantasy sports can enhance camaraderie and socialization among your workers. Most of the time, such participation will have little or no effect on productivity. What’s more, it can actually spur some valuable relationships if, for example, workers who once saw each other as adversaries bond over a player’s performance in the last football game.

You don’t have to go so far as encouraging fantasy sports; in fact, as the boss, you probably shouldn’t be initiating such activities. If you do, it could be taken the wrong way by giving the impression that employees need to participate to look good to the boss. But if you’re asked to participate, it could break down walls, spur some important conversations and lead to greater engagement on the part of your employees – and that’s no fantasy.

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