Warning : Smoking is bad for your employment


Stories are popping up everywhere about employers who are refusing to hire workers who smoke, or tacking on a premium penalty, or even offering a quitting incentive, hoping to reduce health care costs and increase productivity.

The CDC estimates that workers who smoke cost their companies about $1,850 extra per year in absenteeism and medical costs than workers who do not smoke.

This issue is stirring up a lot of concerns over discrimination, increased costs for the employee and what the best ways are to get employees who smoke to quit.

Hospitals kick the habit

A majority of hospitals now have smoke-free campuses, affecting patients and workers alike. But some are going a step further, by not hiring workers who smoke, even in their private lives.

One hospital, Mercy Medical Centers in Des Moines, Iowa, will no longer hire workers who smoke.

Job applicants will be required to take a urine test, and anyone who tests positive for nicotine will have to wait six months before re-applying. Current employees who smoke will be not be fired, but will be encouraged to quit and the hospital says they will provide resources for quitting options.

In a statement, Chief Human Resources Officer Robyn Wilkinson for Mercy said, “Our employees have an obligation to set a good example for the communities we serve.”

Other hospitals haven’t outright outlawed smoking; employees who do just have to pay more for it. Starting January of next year, Carle Foundation Hospital in Illinois will charge employees who smoke $30 extra per month for their health care premiums.

The slippery slope 

 Some have asked, if employers can reject candidates because they are smokers, where will the screening stop? What about overweight workers, or those with diabetes? Surely those employees are more costly, as well.

“I think banning the hiring of smokers is a slippery slope. We don’t know where that would end,” said Andrew Tarsy of the Progressive Business Leaders Network. “Employers start looking at our lifestyle choices, our personal habits, what we do at home and I think it raises a lot of concerns.”

A majority of states currently have laws that protect smokers from workplace discrimination.

Ohio doesn’t. One employer, Reynolds and Reynolds in Dayton, Ohio, began rejecting five years ago candidates who smoked and this January began requiring all current workers to quit the habit. Workers were given about a five month advance notice to quit the habit, but any worker who is found using tobacco going forward can be fired.

But there could be consequences to these policies. Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, says, "Unemployment is also bad for health.”

In a large study with General Electric, employees who smoke were offered a cash incentive. After a year, almost 15 percent of those who participated and were given cash had stayed smoke-free. Only 5 percent of those who were not given an incentive refrained from smoking.

Solutions for employers

QuitNet by Healthways is the largest tobacco cessation program, and is in use by more than 100 employers, several of them Fortune 500 companies.

The program cost to an employer varies, from about $6 to $10 per employee, but the return of about $1,850 per person is substantial.

Janna Lacatell is the senior design manager for Healthways' Tobacco Cessation Solutions, and says that employers should focus on hiring for job-related qualifications, but also wants toencourage employers to offer resources and support to employees to make it possible to quit smoking.

Lacatell also says it’s important to address all forms of tobacco use, and not just cigarette smoking.

Employees can register for the online-based program online or on the phone. It includes round the clock support and coaching, as well as free nicotine-replacement therapy such as patches or gum. This is an important aspect, because “employees can better understand the value of a box of patches,” Lacatell says.

By Ginny Kipling

Compiled by : Sudhir Jain