Time costs of employees who smoke

Time is one of our most precious commodities and is something that can never be replaced no matter how hard we try or spend trying to regain lost time.Time is very important to businesses and is one of the ways that effectiveness and quality can be measured in production and other more clerical types of positions.The time that many employees spend smoking in any given day can really add up quickly and employers are trying to find ways to reclaim lost time from smoking.

There are many different reasons why businesses want their employees to stop smoking and one of the most important factors in this rationale is the time that is lost to smoking.Realistically, smokers take several breaks each day, probably at least 3 or 4 in a typical work day and each of those breaks is about 15 minutes long.If any employee were to take 4 breaks a day lasting 15 minutes each, this would total 1 hour each day they are working.Over a month this becomes at least 20-25 hours a month that are missed during a normal workweek.Using 20 hours a month over the course of a year equates to roughly 240 hours per year lost to taking smoke breaks.This number is shocking to many people and most do the math again to make sure that the calculation is correct because it really seems like too much time to be gone from the workplace smoking.If an employee were making a flat rate of $10 per hour, these 240 hours over the course of a year would cost the business at least $2,400 each year.Most people wouldn't complain if they were offered an extra $2,400 dollars and neither would any business.

This cost is only the real cost of having employees getting several paid smoke breaks each day they are working.The other costs that are involved with the time employees spend smoking are more abstract and not as easy to clarify or to quantify, but they are still very real.Lost productivity because of lost time can really affect a business and can also really ding the bottom line of that business if the problem persists or is very severe.The time that employees spend away from their desks is time that will never be regained and that cannot be reused.

Having other employees who take smoke breaks can be very disheartening to other workers, because they don't necessarily make them ill or hurt or offend them, but they can become more difficult to work with.There is sometimes supplementary work that must be undertaken by other employees to make up the time that is missed by those out on smoking breaks and this can really wear down the other employees.This affects their productivity and doesn't allow them to get as much of their own work done which decreases overall company efficiency and effectiveness.

Regardless of what all the estimates say and what the statistics are in the research, the fact of the matter is that smokers are less effective during their breaks and cost companies a great deal of money each year because of lost time and productivity.There are many things that people try to do to make this less of a problem, but the best solution many have found is to encourage employees to quit smoking.Many of them want to quit anyway and just need the help and encouragement of someone else who is willing to help and stand by them.Your offer to help your employees quit smoking could mean a lot to them and really save you a lot of lost time and money.