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Through effective intervention, companies can make a radical impact on the health of their team members and negate the rising costs associated with employer-sponsored insurance. Smoking cessation — more than any other treatment — is a pillar of this kind of prevention-based wellness.

Smoking is a Detriment to Workplace Wellness

To tackle smoking as a health concern, organizations need to start with a strong understanding of its effects on their workforce. The Centers for Disease Control shared some powerful statistics on the prevalences of tobacco use on Americans:

• An estimated 40 million adults in the United States currently smoke cigarettes.
• “Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, accounting for more than 480,000 deaths every year, or one of every five deaths.”
• “More than 16 million Americans live with a smoking-related disease.”

The CDC also offers “Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs.” Separately, the World Health Organization found that tobacco use not only causes severe health issues, it decreases productivity at work, increases absenteeism and raises health care costs for employers.

Cessation Programs Yield Returns and Results

Tobacco’s double impact — productivity loss and rising healthcare costs — necessitates that employers foster different choices. Although cessation programs involve significant planning, they can have long-term effects.

One workplace wellness program, for example, prompted 26% of participating smokers to quit by fostering personal accountability. A 2009 study featured in The New England Journal of Medicine also found that attaching a financial incentive to participation in a smoking cessation program increased employee participation by 10% and an employee’s likelihood of quitting by 9.1%.

Many argue: It’s both morally imperative and financially beneficial for employees to support smoking cessation through supportive programming and clear incentives.