Addiction in the Workplace –Dealing with Employment Addictions with CADAS at Work

Article | Leigh Williams, CEO at CADAS

Most people have some form of dependency – what’s yours? Do you need a strong coffee to kickstart the day, or is a glass of wine or beer essential after a stressful day? Perhaps it’s chocolate biscuits, vaping or smoking, or checking social media on your phone multiple times a day?

Even though most of us have some form of habitual dependency, if the doctor told us to stop drinking coffee to lower our blood pressure or if we misplaced our mobile phone for a week, we might feel a bit grumpy but we’d be okay.

When dependency becomes an addiction, there are serious health implications – often both mental and physical. The direct impact for employers includes absenteeism, workplace accidents, exposure to legal risk and poor productivity.

According to The Addiction Helper, 70% of substance users are in full-time employment.

Government statistics state that alcohol misuse among employees costs up to £7.3 billion in lost productivity through increased absenteeism, unemployment and premature death.

We are all aware that employers have a corporate responsibility to look after the health and wellbeing of their workforce, but how many take this seriously? The majority of employers and managers turn a blind eye, leading to thousands of people going to work every day under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Many of these people are driving, working at height or in safety-critical roles, putting themselves, their colleagues and the wider public in danger.

What’s more, addictions in the UK are currently rising. Two reasons for this are an increase in poor mental health since the COVID-19 pandemic, and longer NHS waiting lists.

Longer waiting lists are leading to people living with pain for extended periods and therefore finding ways to soothe themselves; for example, by drinking, overusing prescription medication and using drugs.

CADAS At Work can help employers with their corporate responsibilities, making a significant difference to the impact that addiction can have in the workplace. Our highly trained staff have the knowledge and expertise to deliver a variety of support programmes, each of which is tailored and adapted to meet the unique needs of the individual businesses we work with. Here are some of the ways we can help.

Policy Review

Most businesses (77%) have a policy on drugs and alcohol, yet the policy may rarely be reviewed. We work with managers and HR personnel to check if the drugs and alcohol policy is fit for purpose. As part of this, we ask:

• Is the policy equitable? For example, if managers are treated differently from other employees in the context of random drug testing, this could lead to challenges unless the justifications are specified in the policy.

• What records are kept of which members of staff are taking prescribed medication, so this can be checked prior to drug testing?

• Does the policy reflect up-to-date testing procedures, in light of developments in both synthetic drugs and testing techniques?

The aim of our policy review is for managers and HR teams to feel confident about implementing all aspects of their drug and alcohol policy.

Training for Managers

Of the 77% of businesses that have a drug and alcohol policy, only 12% provide managers and HR personnel with any training on drugs and alcohol, and only 3% provide regular refresher training. The comprehensive drug and alcohol awareness training we provide gives managers the capacity and confidence to spot the signs of addictive behaviours and then manage and support their employees.

When a person develops an addiction, it’s usually the people closest to them who first notice the problem. Many of us spend more of our week with our colleagues than with our family, meaning that it is managers and colleagues who often experience the impact of a colleague’s addiction. But do they have the knowledge to deal with it?

Through our Making Every Conversation Count (MECC) training, we teach managers and supervisors how to approach difficult conversations. From our experience, if managers and supervisors have the right skills and knowledge, employees will have confidence in the company’s policies and procedures – for themselves and others.

Training for Employees

Our employee drug and alcohol awareness training is also popular. This training, which we tailor to the organisation's policies, raises personal understanding about our own behaviours and those of others.

Review of Disclosure Procedures

Only 27% of employers provide information about how to disclose a drug or alcohol problem.

We help businesses consider these questions:

• Do employees know who they can go to if they need to disclose their addiction?

• Do employees know the consequences of disclosure and how it will affect them financially? Although 20% of employers offer staff paid time off to attend appointments and get support, nearly 50% of businesses don’t even provide unpaid time off.

• Do managers and staff know what records to keep and what information they should keep confidential?

Coaching

Very few employment assistance programmes offered by businesses include specialist support for drugs and alcohol.

However, research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that 69% of employees who disclosed an addiction and were supported with a referral to a specialist continued working in the same organisation. This statistic shows that in the long term, investing in employees can be more cost-effective than dismissing them.

For businesses whose assistance programme does not include drug and alcohol support, we offer one-to-one recovery coaching for up to twelve 1-hour sessions, either face to face or online. All employees who are offered addiction support through CADAS At Work are fast-tracked to minimise the impact on you as their employer. The cost can be paid for by the employee or their employer.

To sum up, when organisations are proactive about supporting employee wellbeing, their workforce is much more likely to thrive and be more productive.

In the words of the CIPD, “Investing in employee wellbeing can lead to increased resilience, reduced sickness absence and higher performance and productivity. Put simply – it makes good business sense… morally, legally and financially!”.

Company Bio

CADAS is a Cumbrian addictions charity established in 1979. Over 40 years later, the types of addictions and our treatments have evolved, but our commitment to holistically supporting people to change their addictive behaviours has not. CADAS At Work is a social enterprise element of CADAS that offers addictions training, guidance and support for employers and employees. Any profit from the income generated by CADAS At Work is donated to CADAS’s charitable work.

Meet the Author

Leigh Williams is CEO of a mental health charity that specialises in addictive behaviours – CADAS, Cumbria Addictions: Advice and Solutions.

Leigh has been a charity sector manager for over 20 years specialising in youth, community and health. CADAS supports people in Cumbria affected by their own or someone else’s problematic addictions via a range of services, and the charity is active nationally with its CADAS At Work service (aimed at employers), its training support and its virtual support service for anyone struggling with an addictive behaviour who wants to make a long-term change (Change launches in Jan 2024).