Interesting news story this week about the cost of smoking to UK businesses - which is actually quite a lot - at 1.4 billion pounds a year. This is down to smokers being a third more likely to take time off sick and also smokers on average taking more time off from work due to illness with an average of 2.7 further days off every year.
Of course, not all smokers take more time off work - these are just averages. But reading between the lines it could well be that while at one end of the scale you have smokers wh aren't taking any more sick leave than anyone else, at the other end of the scale there will be people who have become serisoulsy ill as a result of smoking and are off sick longer term.
Workplace wellbeing strategies are something many businesses use to minimise sickness absence but of course it's up to the individual whether they choose to smoke or not. But there's plenty of opportunity for organisations to supply employees with healthy information on smoking cessation. Private health care insurance providers often have detailed factsheets on their site and there's also some stopping smoking content on NHS Choices.
In other smoking news today, it's reported that of the 1 in 5 people from the States who smoke, half of them have at some point tried to give up. Tobacco has been described as "the single largest preventable cause of death and disease" in the country. Smoking is something that - despite having been banned in buildings and everyone knowing it's unhealthy - is something that a minority stil chooses to do. But it's a minority that appears to be getting smaller and smoking less.
Posted by: |