What are the costs of employee smoking to an employer?
In addition to the health problems caused by smoking, the increase in medical costs is estimated at $1,600 per year per smoker. On top of that, employees who take three 10-minute smoking breaks a day are spending 15 eight-hour days of paid company time a year away from the job to smoke. What smoking-restriction policies are available to employers? There are three options: • Restrict smoking to designated areas. This is a good start for companies that have no restrictions, but it is very difficult to keep the smoke in the smoking areas. Also, smoke in confined smoking areas is so concentrated that it puts people who are forced to work in these areas at double risk. • Establish smoke-free buildings. Not only are you providing clean air in all indoor work locations, you are also forcing smokers to go outside to smoke, which is enough to convince some to quit and most to smoke less. However, the main drawback is that smokers tend to congregate by the doors, which means that other workers,
