Employers Can Do More To Help Employees Quit Smoking
Employers must do more than simply ban smoking from the workplace if they want employees to quit the habit for good, the National Business Group on Health (NBGH) concluded in a recently released study of employers' approaches to smoking cessation.
The NBGH's survey of 508 benefits managers and 510 full-time employees who smoke found that smoking—along with high blood pressure and obesity—is among the top three employee health priorities for employers. Results further showed that 82% of the employers surveyed believe they should take steps to help employees quit smoking.
While the survey indicated that most employers believe establishing a smoke-free workplace is the best way to encourage employees to quit, 78% of smokers working for companies that do not allow them to light up in the workplace said this policy alone was not enough to motivate them to stop smoking. Around half of the employees surveyed reported having made between three and ten attempts to quit smoking. Most smoking employees, the survey found, would like their employers to offer access to smoking cessation programs.
"While employers recognize the value of a smoke-free workplace, many may not know about the benefits of a systematic approach to smoking cessation," said Ron Finch, vice president at the NBGH. "Benefit managers and health care practitioners treat smoking as an acute problem, instead of the chronic condition that it is. We need to change this perception. In this survey we heard from smokers that they want support through comprehensive smoking cessation benefits."
When asked how frequently they take smoke breaks, nearly half of employee respondents said they take between three and six breaks a day, with more than two-thirds of those who take breaks reporting that these breaks last between five and fifteen minutes.
The NBGH study cited research from the Centers for Disease Control and Partnership for Prevention indicating that smoking cessation benefits, along with aspirin therapy and childhood immunizations, are among the most cost-effective benefits employers can provide. However, the study noted, the Partnership for Prevention has found that fewer than one-quarter of employers offer comprehensive smoking cessation programs.
