We recently helped one of our clients come up with a smoking cessation program for their company of 120 employees (20 of whom were smokers).
We presented a plan whereby each employee who quit smoking would receive a total of $5,000 cash. When we first presented the plan, the company’s CFO nearly achieved liftoff right in his seat!
But here are the cold hard facts of smoking. The average wage the those 20 smokers was $34 per hour and they were averaging four smoke breaks a day. Using those numbers, we calculated that each smoke break was costing the company a little over $453. At 260 working days a year, that’s nearly $118,000 — just in wages. When you take a dive and look at the soft costs, it’s substantially more than that. In lost time alone the ROI was less than one year.
Creativity is more important than ever these days and your employees will be healthier, your customers will be happier, and your business will reward you for programs like this.
