A look at the cost of smoking on businesses.
In this article...
We all know that smoking isn’t great for your health. But, is your employees’ smoking costing your business? Let’s take a look at how the effects of smoking can impact the day to day of your employees and how making the switch to vaping can help this.
Smoking vs Vaping: The Cost On Your Business
Both smoking and the illnesses that it can cause can have a huge impact on the lives of workers, and as a knock-on effect, the business as a whole.
Health & Absence
We already know that smoking has a detrimental impact on health. It can lead to strokes, heart problems, lung issues, affect bone health and cause cancer. There are even links to memory problems and a possible contribution to dementia. These issues can cause workers to take a lot of time off due to medical visits and bouts of illness. Also, it doesn’t just affect the smoker, as second hand smoke is just as dangerous.
Vaping is 95% healthier than smoking and doesn’t carry these risks. There isn’t such a thing as second hand vape, and vaping around others doesn’t impact their health at all.
Time
Roughly one in five employees smoke. If they were to take 4 cigarette breaks a day for 10 minutes, that equates 8% of an employees time. That’s £1,733 worth of time, if the worker is on minimum wage. Naturally, if you allow those addicted to nicotine to vape while working, this cost is none existent.
Legal Restrictions
Smoking has been illegal in public and work spaces since 2007. As a result of this employers require ‘no smoking’ signs and are responsible to make sure employees don’t smoke inside. If caught, workers can face fines of up to £200 and employers that don’t enforce these rules can see fines of up to £2,500.
Vaping doesn’t have these restrictions. In fact, it’s not actually illegal to vape anywhere in the UK. Vaping regulation falls to whatever company you work for. Most companies treat vaping as smoking and make employees join smokers outside. This can actually be detrimental to their health, as they will be forced to breathe in second hand smoke.
Litter And Risk
Even when isolated to an outside smoking area, smoking creates litter. Cigarette butts and ash can make the outside of the workplace appear unsightly and require cleaning. E-cigarettes don’t create this litter and most packaging and consumables are quite easy to discard. The smell from cigarettes is also unappealing and the smell of smoke lingers. Vapour dissipates in seconds and doesn’t leave any long term odours.
Vaping At Work
A study found that 75% of interviewed workers aren’t allowed to vape while at work. But, 40% of workers said that being able to vape would incentivise them to remain in a job.
Employers should support smokers making the switch to e-cigarettes and you can action several Public Health England suggestions to preventsmoking costing your business. Here’s a list of the easiest to action:
- When communicating an organisation's policy on e-cigarette use, make clear the distinction between vaping and smoking.
- To maximise the number of smokers switching to e-cigarettes, vaping should be made a more convenient, as well as safer, option.
- It is never acceptable to require vapers to share the same outdoor space with smokers. Where a designated outdoor smoking area has been provided in a public place or workplace, vapers should be allowed to vape elsewhere
In Conclusion
Smoking definitely presents a significant cost to businesses across the UK. It also impacts on employee health, which can have a devastating effect. It is important that more organisations open up to vaping as a viable alternative, not just to help reduce the cost, but for the health their people.
By allowing an employee to vape either in work or a designated area away from smokers, you can minimise the costs and help prevent long term employee illness from occurring.
And that’s it for our look at how smoking costs business. If you have any questions then feel free to contact us, and our customer service advisors can help.
