There is no doubt that the number of deaths caused by smoking can harm your company’s bottom line. The biggest impact could be you might be losing talents due to smoking-related deaths. According to the CDC, Tobacco usage kills more than 7 million people worldwide each year. If the global smoking habit does not change, more than 8 million people will die each year from tobacco-related illnesses by 2030. You might also suffer from higher health costs from your employees. Whether it is to address the smoking habit problem in your workplace or to prevent employees from becoming smokers, here are some ways to create a smoke-free workplace.
Effects of Tobacco Smoking
The tobacco epidemic is one of the most serious public health problems the world has ever faced, killing more than 8 million people each year, including around 1.2 million fatalities from second-hand smoke exposure. Tobacco in all forms is dangerous, and there is no safe level of tobacco exposure. Cigarette smoking is the most frequent type of tobacco consumption in the world. Waterpipe tobacco, different smokeless tobacco products, e-cigarettes, and heated tobacco are examples of other tobacco products.
It is not easy to get smokers to stop, but there is one effective way you can apply to prevent unhealthy habits and build a better workplace by adapting or creating a tobacco-free workplace policy. The benefits of the tobacco-free workplace include creating a safer and healthier workplace, reducing health care costs, and decreasing absenteeism due to tobacco-related illness. Likewise, the smoke-free workplace will increase your employees’ and company’s productivity and performance.
Things to do at the Office
The first important thing to create a smoke-free workplace is to safeguard your non-smoking employees from the harm of second-hand smoking. They may not smoke, but the smoke exhaled by smoking employees and leftover stains of cigarettes can be harmful to them. Based on CDC data, non-smokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work have a 25–30% increased likelihood of developing heart disease. Secondhand smoking raises the risk of stroke by 20-30%. This is why you need to strictly regulate areas to smoke within your office. It is better if the smoking area is not situated where many people pass by, so non-smokers will not be exposed to cigarette smoking.
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Creating a smoke-free workplace should also be done through encouraging employees to control their habits and make efforts to support them to stop smoking altogether. WHO recommends a set of quick tips to curb the smoking addiction, which you can suggest your employees do too:
In addition, you can do the following tips to spread the good around the office.
You can place a poster with a no-smoking sign and other anti-smoking posters in every corner of your office. You can also put a sign of a healthy workplace that will raise awareness of your employees.
It has been proven by study and research that incentives can break our bad habit, including smoking. Thus, you can make use of incentive advantages to help your employees.
The most common reason for smoking is stress. Therefore, to maximize the campaign, you should also build a resilient and decent workplace. You can offer anti-smoking exercises, build an anti-smoking club for those who want to quit smoking, and spread the positivity of having a good and healthy body
Doing celebration along the way as quitting smoking is a really big deal. Your employee might have a harder time quitting smoking. Therefore, it will be good if you congratulate your employee who quit smoking by celebrating it with the team or individually. You can set up a small dinner party or simply have drinks together.
It is important to note that getting your employees to stop smoking altogether is not simply done by giving them fines for smoking in the office or threatening them aggressively. Doing these things will not get them to stop, but rather find loopholes. Instead, be strict with a hint of compassion by providing support and appreciating their progress, no matter how small it seems. Creating a smoke-free workplace requires patience and resilience, but the long-term effect is worth the effort.
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