Smoking in the workplace

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended that employers should support the government’s strategy of improving the nation’s health by helping their staff to give up smoking. It estimated that a business with 20 workers – of whom typically five would smoke – could spend £66 helping staff to quit, and make an overall saving of £350 from increased productivity.

Recent research in Amsterdam indicates that smokers take an average of eight days more sick leave each year than non-smokers. Nuffield Proactive Health’s research into employer attitudes towards smoking found 73% would recruit a non-smoking candidate over a smoker, while 60% believed smokers were less productive. Another research by the Benenden Healthcare Society found that the average smoker takes 3.2 cigarette breaks per working day, each lasting 9.5 minutes. Aside from smoking, around 10% of accidents in the workplace are alcohol-related, and nationwide, up to 14 million working days are lost each year due to alcohol-related absenteeism.

There’s no doubt that helping ‘addicted’ staff to quit could help a business to cut its sickness absence rates, increase productivity, enhance the corporate image, and reduce the number of instances requiring disciplinary action. According to Nuffield Proactive Health, 59% of managers said that when England’s smoking ban comes into force in July, employers should proactively support health provisions such as turning smoking rooms into staff gyms, or permitting short ‘fresh air’ breaks to all employees. The NICE recommendation to allow time off during work time for staff to attend support programmes could be more cheaply addressed by offering flexible working times. The provision of confidential counselling is also an important way of encouraging staff to be healthier, and need not be expensive. If staff quit their addictions, all business could become healthier.