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Talent Management Perspectives

Published July 2008

Smoking Cessation Incentives Can Positively Impact Bottom Line

  Kellye Whitney

Many talent managers are on the fence about employees' smoking habits and an organization's potential involvement in helping them quit. But there are clear benefits to offering tobacco cessation programs, including productivity gains and reduced costs associated with medical claims.

"A tobacco user annually can cost up to $5,445," said Mary Kate Salley, senior vice president of client services at Free & Clear Inc., a tobacco cessation program provider. "About half of those costs come from medical claims; the other half come from lost productivity and workman's compensation. The losses in productivity come around taking smoking breaks, as well as the fact that tobacco users have up to two additional sick days than nonsmokers. Once someone quits those are annualized savings that are recognized every year."

Since Salley said approximately 21 percent of the United States population smokes or uses tobacco, tallying up the costs of not helping employees kick their nicotine habits could be considerable.

Further, the prevalence of smoking in recent years has held steady throughout the nation; more than 70 percent of tobacco users want to quit, but Salley said because it's an addiction, it's hard. That's where incentives come in.

"It's been demonstrated that when you provide a comprehensive program with coaching, you can achieve high quit rates," she said. "We recently had 43 percent or more of our employer clients achieve a quit rate six months post-registration. Incentives can just be one piece of the puzzle to help people and encourage them, and incentives can be structured as part of the overall health and wellness program for tobacco cessation."

Salley said talent managers should provide a comprehensive approach for the tobacco cessation programs, offering cognitive behavior therapy, integrated modalities — Web, phone, as well as materials — and access to medication at no cost to the employee. She said such programs should also allow for multiple attempts, celebrate small changes and communicate clearly and often.

"Typically when someone registers for a tobacco cessation program, about 40 percent or greater will quit," Salley explained. "For those that don't quit, allowing them to re-enroll at no additional cost if they're interested will help them on their journey to being tobacco-free."

Salley said part of the key to success can be incenting not who quits or doesn't quit but incenting and celebrating the type of behavior talent managers ultimately want.

"For the tobacco cessation or wellness program, you want to incent engagement," she said. "Tie the incentive to engagement and ongoing support of activities and behaviors you want to reward. We see higher quit rates when individuals provide an incentive that links to the act of completing calls with a quit coach, along with the Web activity.

"You don't want to have an incentive program that incents someone to enroll and then it's over. You want to incent them along the continuum. When you do that, have really clear policies about how it works and clear communication. Someone needs to understand how the program and incentives work so that they can have compliance in the program."

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