Dealing With Gambling in the Workplace

Gambling is becoming popular nowadays. Even professional people are hooked with playing different gambling games. Hence, there are times that professionals and office employees engage in gambling even if they are in their workplaces. The occurrence of gambling in workplaces encourages social analysts to observe and determine the adverse effects or consequences of this phenomenon and how personnel managers and staff deal with the situation.

Gambling is referred as a particular event with uncertain outcomes that involves the betting of one's resources, properties or money. Gambling in the workplace is commonly believed to be a form of relaxation of employees or workers. However, economic experts believe that gambling in the workplace pose negative effects on the productivity of employees as well as the company or an enterprise.

Based on studies conducted in several industries, workplace gambling may increase employee absenteeism as well as tardiness. Findings also show that gambling in the workplace may be the cause of poor services to clients, health claims that are related to physical and psychological stress, and corporate theft or fraud.

Most employees who are involved in workplace gambling are believed to be suffering gambling addiction or what medical experts call as problem gambling. Employers or corporate executives can identify problem gamblers among their employees by observing their behavior in the workplace. Some of the symptoms of problem gambling include bragging about one's winnings and perception towards gambling, failure to accomplish or do the tasks efficiently as well as frequently borrowing money from other employees.

Every company has the right to implement rules and regulations regarding workplace gambling. Personnel managers should be aware of the impact of workplace gambling in the performance of employees. However, a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 63 percent of the respondents mentioned that their employers failed to implement corporate policies that will prevent the occurrence of gambling in their workplaces.

Workplace gambling may improve the financial state of an employee. On the other hand, it may also cause inappropriate effects on the performance as well as to the productivity of employees and companies. Workplace gambling may be seen as a form of relaxation or entertainment but, if employees fail to control themselves, economic analysts suggest that personnel officers and managers should implement rules and regulations to prevent the proliferation of workplace gambling in various industries. Therefore, workplace gambling should be addressed immediately by human resources executives to enhance labor productivity.