Many companies use quiet incentives to encourage desired employee behavior, such as losing weight. Not Macy’s. Beginning on July 1, workers at the department store chain who admit to using tobacco will be surcharged $35 a month, or $420 a year, for health coverage. The extra cost will be deferred only if smokers enroll in a free quit-smoking class. Their progress will then be reviewed after six months.
Instead of using carrots to encourage smokers to kick the habit, businesses increasingly are wielding sticks. At PepsiCo, smokers pay an annual $600 insurance surcharge, while publisher Gannett charges $60 a month. Some go even further: Union Pacific and Scotts Miracle-Gro refuse to hire smokers.
Between medical spending and productivity losses, smoking costs the U.S. more than $193 billion a year, says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tobacco use is responsible for one in five U.S. deaths. For employers, a smoker is 18 percent more expensive than a nonsmoker, says Cathy Tripp, a consultant at Aon Hewitt.
4 comments:
i forsee lawsuits
3:46
I agree. While I think a person or company should be able to hire who they wish, I don't think they should be able to exclude someone for a bad habit.
atlantic general hospital does this
Need to do the same with obesity. Fact - overweight people tend to suffer more chronic illnesses than smokers if an equal representation of population. Singling out one class of people whose behavior is damaging to themselves and ignoring a class doing more damage to themselves is not only discriminatory but self defeating.
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