Every year for the past half dozen or so, Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has estimated lost worker productivity from time spent paying attention to the NCAA Tournament – watching games, filling out brackets and trash talking. This year’s figure? $1.7 billion.

But the study, some argue, presumes that office workers spend every moment focusing on work and conversation never strays to current events, American Idol, or surfing YouTube to watch videos. My story today looks at companies that have decided to join the March Madness hoopla and allow bracket pools and in some cases, TVs will be tuned to games. Plenty of workers will be checking out CBSSports.com’s March Madness on Demand streaming video of all the games online.

Is your office joing the fun? Or have pools and game watching been banned?