As employers evaluate their wellness priorities this year, helping employees kick some dangerous substance use habits is high on the list.
Forty-eight percent of employers plan to tackle tobacco cessation in their top three priorities for 2022, according to a recent benchmark study conducted by digital health company, Pivot. Employees are increasingly smoking and vaping on the job during COVID, with 96% of tobacco users engaging while at work.
“Benefits leaders are prioritizing helping their employees quit tobacco in 2022 because tobacco use has exploded in the workforce and in the workplace,” says David Utley, founder and CEO of Pivot. “We've done all this public health work, all these interventions, and we still have 50 million people in the U.S. who use tobacco.”
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The tobacco boom has been exacerbated by three major drivers, according to Utley — mental health issues, the pandemic and the availability of vaporized nicotine. And employers are seeing the effects: almost half of benefits leaders estimate that 21-50% of their workforce uses tobacco, while some leaders estimate those figures to be well above 50% of their staff.
However, discussing these issues at work is still taboo: 69% of employees state that they have avoided revealing tobacco use to their employer at least on some occasions. Much of that reluctance is due to the pre-existing stigmas surrounding substance use that continue to plague the path to treatment, Utley says.
“Over 80% of tobacco users want to quit,” he says. “But most programs offer coaching over a couple of months with some free Nicorette to help their employees, and then they cut them loose.”
Instead, what employees need is long-term, comprehensive and holistic care — similar to the approach to any other health and wellness condition, Utley says. The team at Pivot compiles a variety of evidence-based solutions, including access to a dedicated coach for a year, as well as FDA-cleared sensors, a device that measures carbon monoxide in exhaled breath, enabling users to link their smoking behavior and CO values and track their progress in reducing or quitting smoking.
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“We respect tobacco users — we don't vilify,” he says. “They're human beings that have an addiction, just like somebody suffering from a chronic condition like type one or type two diabetes.”
Engaging with employees and helping them kick their habits can help employees be more truthful about their tobacco usage, Utley says. In his experience, Utley has seen insurance surcharges for tobacco-using employees of more than $2,000 a year, a practice that will have to change if employers want to truly reduce substance use. The solution is not to alienate tobacco users, but to integrate solutions into workplace benefits that make these employees feel supported and seen.
“That's not how we should deliver public health interventions for prevention,” Utley says. “Employers have to simply wake up. The tobacco is the problem, not the employee.”
