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Are you concerned that your business may be suffering a loss of productivity due to employees stopping work for a cigarette break? Do you feel it is unfair for your non-smoking employees who don't take such breaks?

Aside from productivity; smoking is a health issue for both smokers and non-smokers. Employers have a responsibility to their employees to provide a safe and healthy work environment. Phasing out smoking in the work place will give non-smoking employees less exposure to passive smoke and restore productivity of smokers.

Applying an instant ban is not the best strategy to stop smoking in the work place because employees may see it as draconian and become disgruntled or angry.

Some smokers may find it hard not to have a cigarette for a whole day. To cope they will find hiding places to smoke such as restrooms and storerooms, making them unpleasant for other employees to use. Such resorts could lead to fire hazards if cigarette butts are not extinguished properly inside waste paper baskets.

A gradual approach will be more beneficial as well as being a more effective method of eroding employee resistance.

Firstly you need to understand smoking and the smoker. Depending on the individual, smoking is an addiction (addictions can be considered a sickness) that needs to be either controlled or conquered by the person who smokes. You wouldn't expect the cold or the flu to be cured overnight; therefore you shouldn't expect your employee's smoking habits to be reformed overnight either.

To get things moving decide on a reasonable time frame for smoking to be totally phased out and set a commencing non-smoking date. About two to three months for example.

Next inform your employees. To be certain everybody gets the message, attach a memo to all employees' pay cheques. Put the memo up on message boards, in the lunchroom, doors and any common areas where your employees work or interact.

Some employees will be disgruntled or concerned about how they are going to handle the situation. The time period between informing them and the non-smoking date will give them time to talk it over with each other and get used to what is going to occur.

A lot of smokers actually don't want to be smokers. The reason they smoke is due to habit, peer pressure and nicotine addiction so it is possible that some employees will see the situation as an opportunity to quit smoking. It is important to give these employees support.

At the next staff meeting discuss the smoking ban and give employees

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