All UK publicly-listed companies should be obliged to assess and manage the risks posed by employees’ drinking behaviour and to introduce specific alcohol-related policies to deal with it, a charity has said.
Alcohol Concern has written to Vince Cable, secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, requesting that a greater focus be given to alcohol-related issues in the workplace.
The charity also intends to write to the chairmen of all FTSE 250 companies, proposing that they introduce alcohol awareness programmes, devised by its partner, BreathScan. The company’s offerings include disposable single-use Breath Alcohol Detectors that enable employers to undertake staff screening.
Alcohol Concern said that its aim was to save the economy 14 million working days and £6.4 billion per year in lost productivity and absenteeism. According to a government report entitled ‘Statistics on Alcohol: England, 2011’, about 200,000 people go to work each day with a hangover, for example.
A further study, undertaken by BreathScan among FTSE 250 companies, found that only 55, or about one fifth, had clear alcohol awareness policies already in place. Six said that they had no plans to implement such policies, while two intimated that they would only do so if forced to by law.
As a result, the charity is calling on the coalition government to explicitly include alcohol policies in the Corporate Governance Code, which sets out the responsibilities of the boards of publicly listed companies in the UK.
It argues that an effective alcohol policy would have a material impact on such companies’ business strategies. The idea is that, because employees constitute a key business asset, boards should have a formal responsibility to address financial losses resulting from reduced performance caused by alcohol.
Alcohol Concern’s chief executive Eric Appleby said: “Companies simply have to address attitudes to alcohol and drinking behaviours – it is costing the economy billions every year. The evidence is that boards are not taking the issues seriously and that’s why we are calling on the government to include alcohol policy as a specific requirement under the Corporate Governance Code.”
The goal was to improve the health and well-being of employees and, in so doing, boost the efficiency and productivity of companies, he added.
