According to the CDC, tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable death. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers! Nearly one in five deaths are related to the effects of smoking in the United States. They also report that 19% of adults on average are smokers and 69% of smokers would like to quit. Smoking causes heart disease, stroke, cancer, and pulmonary disease. A recent study published this June in Tobacco Control reports that smokers cost employers $5,800 a year. 35% of those costs are due to smoking related healthcare claims and a whopping 53% is from lost productivity from smoking breaks. The study claims that smokers on average take five breaks in a workday to go have a cigarette (that’s about an hour a day off of an eight hour workday) and are absent from work an average of two and a half days more than nonsmokers. Employers must realize that there is a very strong business case for providing smoking cessation programs for employees as they are causing a direct hit on their bottom line.There are many ways in which employers can address the impact that smoking employees have on the company:
• Enact a company-wide smokefree workplace policy. In 2003, Florida enacted the Clean Indoor Air Act which bans smoking in restaurants and workplaces but allows the loophole of smoking outside. Because of preemption in the law, smoking is allowed in outside workplaces (unless banned through corporate policy), restaurant patios, bars, music venues, beaches and parks! With such a policy, an employee can only smoke off campus on their lunch break.
• Refuse to hire new employees that smoke. This can be administered by requiring new hires to sign an affidavit – some companies will go so far as test new hires for nicotine or even require them to take a lie detector test. Some companies are going so far as to ban smoking for all employees and are submitting them to random testing and terminating any employees that test positive.
• Charge higher insurance premiums for smoking employees. Florida Heart Research Institute’s Working to Health program is seeing more and more of this. Employers reach out to us to provide nicotine or carbon monoxide testing in addition to biometric testing during open enrollment time. Carbon monoxide testing is the least expensive and most widely requested and is done by breathing into a machine. Results are read in minutes. An oral swab can detect nicotine in the system in about 10 minutes but is more expensive. Both methods cannot detect smokers who have not had a cigarette in 72 hours. Some companies use the monies raised by the higher premiums to help fund smoking cessation programs.
• Provide smoking cessation programs. The contents, quality, cost and success rates of smoking cessation programs vary widely and therefore should be carefully researched and evaluated. Program components may include weekly workshops, phone counseling, health risk assessments, and weekly support groups. Programs are often coupled with options such as nicotine replacement therapy – gum or patches such as NicoDerm CQ®, or medications to reduce cravings like Chantix® or Zyban®.
• Offer financial incentives to quit smoking – companies have been quite successful in getting employees to quit smoking by offering a tiered financial incentive such as $100 for completing a 6 week smoking cessation program, followed by $250 for being smoke free for six months (confirmed by testing) and another $400 for remaining smoke free for a whole year (confirmed by testing).
• Contact Tobacco Free Florida to learn about Florida’s Quitline. They provide a number of free tools and resources for Florida residents. Call 1-877-U-CAN-NOW to learn more.
FHRI encourages employers to implement several of these options because using more tools at the same time greatly improves the success rate to stop smoking. Success is best achieved by creating a supportive environment where leadership walks the walk. Employers also have an opportunity to encourage employees to stop smoking once a year on the Great American Smokeout. This event occurs on the third Thursday of every November and was created by the American Cancer Society to challenge employees to stop using tobacco, and educate them on the many tools available to them to quit tobacco and stay smoke-free. So start planning now to kick off an awareness campaign in your office on Thursday, November 21st and make this the start of many tobacco-free efforts to come in your workplace!
