Marlborough Man Cleans His Airways

Martin is 45 and the Commercial Director of a successful business in Hertfordshire. He used to smoke 60 day and then when he decided to stop, he did. Stopping smoking benefited both him and his company.

Organisations in the UK have no moral of contractual obligation to help employees stop smoking. However, significant commercial gains in terms of improved profitability, greater staff contributions, improved employee attitudes and enhanced corporate image make it an interesting point to consider. Here we examine how the introduction of smoking cessation to a company smoking policy makes sense for both organisations and their employees. We then consider one Directors solution to a lifelong smoking habit, a solution that can benefit business.

Legislation is now in place to prohibit smoking in workplaces in England during 2007. However, it is left to business to implement the changes in smoking policy.

Any organisation that introduces a support programme for smokers as well as initiating a no smoking policy is likely to experience significant gains in productivity and workplace attendance. These gains far outweigh the costs of any smoking cessation programme and include:

• Reduced employee sick days due to heart disease, lung cancer, aggravation of asthma, decreased coughing, and reduction of respiratory complaints.
• An additional month of work per year from smokers (as the average smoker takes 40 minutes of smoke breaks per year).
• The supportive attitude to employee welfare stimulates reciprocal positive attitudes from employees and this helps smoker morale.
• 71% of smokers want to quit (Lader D. and Meltzer H. Smoking related behaviour and attitudes. Office for National Statistics 2001) and this goal is easier for them if their employer creates a smoke free environment and particularly if the employer introduces a smoke cessation programme.
• Without the introduction of a support programme, just over 5% of employees are expected to quit smoking (2Europe Limited, 2006) and government estimates at just under 5% per year are similar
• Recognition amongst non–smokers that they will also benefit from elimination of passive smoking and seeing increased productivity from the new non-smoking colleagues improves the moral of non-smokers.
• Creates the corporate image of a caring organisation and this opens doors with environmentally concerned customers.
• Improved company image (both internally and externally) and possible incremental business from organisations that are environmentally aware.
• Reduced risk of future legislation.

Smoking in the workplace needs to be tackled like any other management challenge. The introduction of a stop smoking programme to a company smoking policy requires clear guidelines for all parties involved and the smoking cessation company, Energy Medicine, suggest a 5-stage process to establish this:-

1. Carry out an internal survey amongst employees to clearly establish the impact of smoking on the company.
2. Discuss the findings and smoking policy recommendations with employees in order to ensure recommendations meet the needs of both the company and the employees.
3. Finalise the stop smoking programme changes to the smoking policy and communicate.
4. Introduce a programme to help employees to stop smoking and this both complies with the new smoking in workplace legislation and demonstrates social responsibility towards employees.
5. Repeat the employee smoker survey after 6 months to measure the return on investment from the introduction of smoking cessation programmes.

According to David Bacon who runs smoking cessation programmes for corporate clients – any organisation should aim for a 10-fold return on their investment in the first year.

Martin is 45 and the Commercial Director of a successful business in Hertfordshire.

I’ve been smoking since I was about 15 and was desperate to give up. I come from a family of smokers, my grandparents smoked, my parents smoked and the smell of smoke from early childhood was associated with security, family and friends.

I have been smoking for about 30 years. I used to smoke 60 cigarettes a day and then I cut down to 40 and more recently, managed to switch to about 10 roll ups a day.

I decided I wanted to stop mainly because of my health but also it’s becoming socially unacceptable. My wife didn’t like me smoking either.

I previously tried to stop smoking with the aid of gum but that was quite hopeless, I didn’t have the will power. It’s very hard to explain to non-smokers but the craving never really went away.

I heard about the END smoking programme and I like to think that I’m open minded so I decided to try the treatment purely because it sounded credible. It was something I hadn’t heard of before and it seemed quite unique and the recorded success rates of around 85% definitely appealed to me.

During the treatment, which took about an hour I felt very positive about doing it and it was an interesting user experience. At certain times during the treatment, I was handed brass electrodes to hold and at these points I thought, what are they doing! While holding the electrodes I noticed a slight tingling in my hands but I didn’t notice any other changes. However, later that evening I noticed that the knawing sensation in the bottom of my stomach wasn’t there any more. Usually as a heavy smoker this feeling kicks 3 to 4 hours after you’ve stopped smoking, when the nicotine starts to exit your body. It’s a horrible feeling and it just was not there any more. Although the main purpose of the treatment was to eliminate the nicotine addiction, the treatment also started a detoxification process in my body, which is half the battle of giving up and now I think the detoxification of the cigarette contents is a very important part of the treatment.

Over the next few days I found it easier to breathe. I started to feel like things were clearing out and I thought I want a cigarette but didn’t really want to have one, if that makes any sense. The thought of the cigarette was still there for quite a while but the nicotine craving was not, it was a strange feeling. The treatment had obviously worked in terms of its de-toxing process and for me that was very encouraging.

The most surprising aspect of the END smoking treatment was the ease of the treatment. It was easy to hold two electrodes to give up smoking and if that is all you have to do to stop, that is fantastic. Mind you, you do need a bit of will power as well.

If I had not had the treatment I wouldn’t have stopped smoking. I can honestly say if I hadn’t come along that day I wouldn’t have made the progress I did. Initially I was very sceptical about it, I mean holding two electrodes? I think anyone who considers this has to be open minded and if they can get past that block then they are going to be pleasantly surprised at the outcome.

My parting comments are if you want to give up smoking then go for it and go and get the treatment. The whole thing about smoking now is that as time passes I dislike smoking more and more and as a reformed smoker I am now the worst at condemning smoking.

The introduction of a stop smoking programme to any smoking policy should be accompanied by advice and support to enable smokers to understand the benefits of quitting. Simply ordering employees to stop smoking is short sighted, as their habit is driven by their addiction to nicotine, one of the most addictive substances known and more addictive than drugs such as cocaine.

There are many different methods and products on the market to help smokers to end their habit. The most popular are nicotine replacement therapies or using smokers helpline and counselling. However, the quickest and most beneficial solution appears to be the treatments that cancel out the electromagnetic charge of nicotine in the body. This is the treatment used by Martin.

These treatments have success rates in excess of 85%, require one treatment for most employees, generally eliminate nicotine addiction within 24 hours and have virtually no withdrawal problems. This provides for minimal disruption to workflow and for a rapid ROI.

Our corporate stop smoking solution includes:-

Analysis of the impact of smoking on the company and employee attitude surveys concerning smoking

Establishes and manages employee stop smoking programmes

Introduces measures to demonstrate return on investment.