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The London School of Economics (LSE) released a report recently, which was commissioned by NHS Smokefree, showing that employers lose about £2.1bn per annum on smoking. The report uses a detailed analysis of the costs involved with smoking.

Illness absences of smokers and the smoking breaks they take during the day were taken into account before formulating the results. The illness absence was found to be 1.77 excess sickness days per smoker every year, which accounted for an extra £1.1bn incurred by the employer and the breaks added up to £1bn. Commenting on the report, Drew Collins from NHS Stop Smoking Services said that smoking is detrimental to health and business alike.

The London School of Economics has thus found a way to make employers realise the costs they incur every year on smokers. The formula devised by them includes the productivity loss due to illness absences, the smoking breaks taken during the day, and the cost of damage caused by smoking related fire incidents to arrive at the final figure. Employers need to keep themselves up-to-date with health and safety developments, yet still meet the needs of the modern workplace. With the right advice and training though the direction of experts in the field, Workplace Law Training offer ‘working safely’ courses covering all kinds of workplace situations - click here for info on their iosh managing safely course.

Professor Alistair McGuire, who is the Head of Social Policy at LSE and the key contributor to the report, pointed out that the formula reveals the amount businesses spend on smoking each year and how minute adjustments can lead to savings.

He said that after applying the formula on a national level, the employers’ total cost estimate came to £2.1bn per annum. This estimate is exclusive of the indirect costs like damage to company’s reputation due to smokers outside the office, and the discontent of the non-smokers, who often see the breaks taken by smokers as a way to avoid work.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 5:36 am and is filed under Business, Health Center, Information Hub. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.