Steps to Becoming a Smoke Free Environment

Step One: Gain upper management support Upper/Top Level Management support is critical in the development and implementation of a smoke free environment policy. Share health and productivity impact of smoking statistics with them. If possible, overlay the statistics onto your employee population to provide a real look at risk of not doing something. For example, if you have 100 employees and the average percent of adults who smoke is 20% then you can expect approximately 20 employees within your population smoke. Utilizing the CDC calculation of lost worker productivity ($3.73) and health care costs ($3.45) per pack of cigarettes, assume that all 20 employees who smoke, smoke 1 pack per day. This is a cost of $7.18 per pack or $143.60 per day. Over the period of a year (52 weeks at 5 workdays each week) you can anticipate a potential cost to your organization to be $37,336 in increased health care costs and lost productivity.

Step Two: Create a Task Force/Implementation Team Identify people from across your organization to work on the development of a policy and an implementation plan. Include employees who smoke as well as employees who do not smoke. Include people from all levels of the organization, as well as all sites across the organization (if multi-site) and be sure to have a representative(s) from Human Resources participate and from medical/health services staff (if available).

1. Benchmark what other organizations within your community/region are doing with respect to smoke free work environments/grounds policies.
2. Identify organizations similar to yours that have implemented smoke free environments, schedule time to interview them to identify the process utilized to develop and implement the policy. Also identify lessons learned/learning opportunities.
3. Present best practices to senior management/leaders.
4. Include “best practices” in the development of your policy and the implementation plan.

Step Three:  Implementation Team Subgroups

1. Smoking Cessation Program Development
   1. What programs will be offered to employees to help support them int their efforts to stop smoking (smoking cessation group program, telephonic interventions, hypnosis, nicotene replacement therapy)?
   2. When will these programs be offered (on work time, on employee’s own time)?
   3. Where will these programs be offered(at the worksite, in the community)?
   4. Who will pay for these programs (the employee, the employer, a combination)?
2. Policy Development, HR and Union Negotiation (if unions are present) Issues
   1. Draft a smoke free environment policy – be sure to include answers to the following:
      1. What will be the components of the policy (employees cannot smoke on company grounds, on company time, at company sponsored events)?
      2. Will employees be subject to blood testing?
      3. Are employees expected to become smoke free at a certain point in time?
      4. Will your organization not hire smokers?
      5. What will be the disciplinary action if the policy is broken?
      6. Will there be an increased percent of the health care premium paid by employees who choose to smoke?
      7. Will smokers’s employment be terminated at a certain point in time?
      8. Determine a draft timeline/implementation plan
3. Policy Enforcement, Security and Physical Plant
   1. How will the policy be enforced?
   2. Determine signage needs for the facility.
4. Education and Training
   1. What will employees be expected to do if a coworker or a visitor/vendor are smoking on the premises?
   2. Create a training program that employees will go through so they understand how to approach this situation should it happen.
5. Communication
   1. Who will send the communication?
   2. What will be included in the communication?
   3. What do you want the tone of the communication to be?
   4. Will your organization’s policy be communicated to the general community? If so, how?
   5. Is the SFE policy a component of a larger health improvement/wellness initiative?

Step Four:  Present Draft Policy and Implementation Plan to Senior Management

Step Five:  Move to Implementation Plan (assuming your team received approval)

Developing a Time Line for SFE Implementation

Work backwards from the anticipated date of implementation. Give yourself between 8 and 12 months. If the effective date of your organization’s SFE is January 1, determine the dates that the work of each subgroup needs to be completed. Following is a sample time line:

Feb

March

April

May

June

July

Aug

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Create Task Force/Implementation Team

X

Draft Timetable with Effective Date

X

Benchmarking/Identification of “best practices”

X

Develop Implementation Team Subgroups Smoking Cessation Program Development Policy Development, HR, Union Issues Policy Enforcement, Security, and Physical Plant Education & Training Communication

X

Present “best practices” to senior leaders

X

SFE Policy & Implementation Plan complete with senior leadership approval

X

Communication Plan complete

X

Announcement of SFE policy (internally)

X

Announcement of SFE policy (external)

X

Begin employee smoking cessation programs/support

X

Begin employee education and training programs

X

SFE Policy Effective

X