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SALT LAKE CITY — Trends show more Utah businesses are designating their workplaces as tobacco-free, and their employees and clients are reaping the health and financial benefits.
Now, by tobacco-free I'm not simply talking about not allowing smoking in the office. The Utah Clean Air Act prohibits that. I'm talking about declaring the entire work campus tobacco-free; that means not allowing smoking anywhere on a business' property.
Businesses are making the change in the workplace and in the workforce. The issue is essentially one of money. The more tobacco users employed by a business, the higher the cost of health insurance plans. Reduce the number of tobacco users in your organization and the cost of health care goes down while productivity increases.
Tobacco cessation is the single most cost effective benefit an employer can provide.
–- Claire Brockbank, hospital and health care consultant
"Tobacco cessation is the single most cost effective benefit an employer can provide," says Claire Brockbank, a Stanford and Harvard educated hospital and health care consultant based in Denver. She was part of the Tobacco-Free Workforce Summit held Wednesday, May 1, sponsored by the Utah Tobacco Prevention Task Force.
The numbers back up her statement. Tobacco users cost company pharmaceutical plans twice as much and smokers are 50 percent more likely to be hospitalized. Each smoker costs their employer more than $1,600 a year in smoking-attributable medical expenditures.
Absenteeism hurts productivity, too. Smokers average two more sick days per year than non-smokers. That's on top of the fact that smokers spend up to eight percent of their workday on smoking-related activities. That adds up to four weeks of paid time lost each year.
Under the Affordable Care Act (or the ACA, also known as "Obamacare"), insurance companies will soon be able to charge up to 50 percent higher premiums for tobacco users. With businesses facing an increase in health care costs somewhere in the 35 percent range this year reducing the harm of tobacco makes sense for every business.
That's why businesses are looking to cut costs and increase productivity by helping their employees kick the habit.
Neerings Plumbing and Heating is a family-owned business that has been in operation since 1935. Neerings began phasing in its tobacco-free worksite program in 2007. In phase 1, employees were required to clock out before taking tobacco breaks, they could no longer smoke in company vehicles and they had to stop using tobacco within 50 feet of a customer's house or business. Nine months later, phase 2 required employees to stop using tobacco during work hours, on company property, at customer homes or businesses, and in company vehicles.
Estimates show if even a modest investment in counseling and treatment were offered to all smokers in the workforce, the U.S. would save $3 billion in medical care costs.
The policies make sense because the return on investment is strong. A business can pay somewhere between a dime and 40 cents per employee each month on tobacco cessation programs. If successful, the savings are impressive. Factoring in just the reduced risk just for cardiovascular disease saves $47 in the first year and nearly $900 over an eight-year period. Estimates show if even a modest investment in counseling and treatment were offered to all smokers in the workforce, the U.S. would save $3 billion in medical care costs.
Dr. Sarah Woolsey, medical director of HealthInsight Utah says work environment policies (like a tobacco-free workplace) and support programs have an impact on cessation rates. Eight out of 10 smokers in Utah say they plan to quit; nearly 15 percent say they plan to do so in the next year. While 60 percent of daily Utah adult smokers say they stopped for a day or longer with the intent to quit for good, only four to seven percent were successful without using a cessation program or medicinal help.
Businesses are bracing for health care insurance cost increases around 35 percent or higher this year. That impending increase has them scrambling for ways to offset the cost of providing health insurance.
The last thing a business wants to do is watch profits go up in smoke.
