Is it right to punish employees for smoking?

Do you have employees that smoke? While they might know the health consequences that come along with smoking, they might not realize how much damage it is causing to the company and their co-workers. Others that are exposed to second-hand smoke can develop respiratory problems and many other health concerns that can increase your company's health insurance costs and they can also plague your company with other issues as well like increased absenteeism.

Employees that are addicted to smoking often take frequent smoke breaks and this will decrease their productivity levels. Employees that are away from their desk leave the area vacant and this means phone calls can go unanswered and many other concerns can arise. Smokers take off considerably more time from people that do not smoke and the smoking also causes problems with their concentration as well as smoking starves the body of necessary oxygen and it is unable to think clearly and function properly.

Health care costs for smokers are much higher, but about 31 percent to be exact. Smokers also visit the doctor more frequently by about 6 more visits per year compared to their non-smoking co-workers. How do these health visits have an impact on your company? Smokers actually increase the total healthcare costs for a group plan by about 7 percent. What does this mean for your other employees? The increased health insurance costs are absorbed by the other employees in the form of higher premiums.

Since smokers are causing health care costs to increase so dramatically, many companies have started refusing to hire smokers and they are increasing health care costs so dramatically. You must look at your options when it comes to hiring smokers and if this is the right thing or not. Some companies have even gone a step further with their employees that smoke and they are now penalizing them. Penalties are implied for the employees that smoke and are costing the company too much money in healthcare costs. A number of companies are charging about $5 a paycheck to each employee that smokes and continues to do so until they decide to quit. It is simply called a "tobacco fee" and companies can legally charge it to their employees that are smokers.

If you have tried smoking cessation programs and employees are not responding to them, you may want to consider using a fee. Punishing your employees for smoking will certainly cause a stir among your staff and you may have some employees that have a number of concerns pertaining to the fee. You must have legal answers for them and be prepared to let them know why they are being charged for smoking and how they can get out of being charged a fee.

How do you feel about trying a smoking cessation program? Smoking cessation is a great way to reduce the amount of smoking employees you have on staff. The programs can be expensive to implement as it does require a lot of work on your part to teach the employees about why smoking is terrible and how they can quit. Not everyone that smokes wants to quit and no matter how many benefits you talk to them about, they might not respond to any of them and will continue to smoke.

Although smoking cessation programs can be costly to implement, they do provide a return on your investment. It may take 4 years or more until you are able to see a return for your investment in a smoking cessation program but eventually it will balance out and you will see a staff filled with healthier employees.