Healthcare costs aside, Illinois businesses may be paying dearly for bad employee habits.
Illinois ranks among the worst states in the nation for binge drinking (47th) and smoking (38th), according to the July 5th issue of Crain’s Chicago Business.
When you take a closer look at the data, which comes from the United Health Foundation’s “America’s Health Rankings” report, you learn that more than 19% of Illinois residents binge drink and more than 21% smoke.
That’s a hefty chunk of the population, and likely a hefty chunk of the workforce.
We know that these types of behaviors impact employers through their healthcare premiums but businesses also get slammed via:
- Increased absenteeism
- Job-related errors
- Increased presenteeism
- On-the-clock ‘breaks’
- Supervisor/colleague frustration & overall decrease in morale
If a significant percentage of your workforce is engaging in these activities, the rest of your business is being affected. You’re losing productivity. You’re losing potential profit. You’re probably losing patience. And you may be losing once effective and loyal employees who have contributed to your organization in the past.
When you want to hang onto your people, but you need to enhance their performance, employee assistance programs, smoking cessation programs, wellness programs and supervisory training programs to help managers identify and manage potential problems, may be a smart investment.
I know that we’re in a challenging economy, but that alone may be a good reason to take measures that prevent healthcare premiums from going up and improve profit potential.
Your employee assistance program (EAP) can help you more than you may think.
We’ve extended our services far beyond the traditional substance abuse services of the early days, although we still provide managed behavioral health. Today, we’re really about broader cost prevention and issues management on the employee relations level – dealing with any and all issues that crop up as the result of employing a workforce. Issues that blur the lines of wellness, productivity, stress and morale – like tobacco addiction and early substance abuse intervention – are right up our alley.
If your workforce resembles Illinois’ ‘vital’ statistics, you may want to give your EAP a call for ideas that cut long-term costs but make sure it is a proactive and visible program
Tags: absenteeism, Bernie Dyme, binge drinking, EAP, Employee Assistance Program, health care, healthcare costs, illinois, managed behavioral health, morale, Perspectives, Perspectives Ltd, presenteeism, smoking, substance abuse, tobacco
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