Alcohol and Work

Alcohol, drugs and the workplace are certainly not a good mix!

According to the consultancy company "Fresh Knowledge" which was founded to help increase awareness regarding the problems associated with alcohol misuse, it is estimated that:

• Alcohol related problems cost British Industries approximately £2 billion a year in absenteeism and poor performance;
• Up to 14.8 million working days are lost each year as a consequence of misusing alcohol;
• Workers who misuse alcohol are believed to be 2 to 3 times more likely to be involved in an industrial accident.

It is imperative that both employers and employees are aware that under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 employers have legal requirements to ensure the health and safety of their employees.

However, according to a recent survey conducted by CIPD, about 4 in 10 of the 500 organisations interviewed have no policy in place to help them manage this challenging issue.

Other key findings include:

• Only 33% of employers train managers in how to manage misuse of alcohol and drugs at work and just 22% train employees generally in organisation procedures in tackling these issues;
• Almost a 1/3 of organisations have dismissed employees in the last 2 years due to alcohol problems;
• Only 12% of respondent organisations have referred employees with drug problems to specialist treatment and rehabilitation in the last 2 years.

While dismissal is often the obvious choice and maybe justified in some cases, many companies and public service organisations are not aware that having a substance policy in place, with managers and staff appropriately trained, may be more economical than going through costly dismissal and recruitment procedures, especially if the policy's ethos focuses on assisting their staff to return to work at an appropriate level of performance.