Handling drinking workers

By ALICE SHOPLAND

Office manager Jill Wyatt is losing patience. One of her staff, an alcoholic, "falls asleep at morning meetings, and he sometimes drinks quite heavily during his lunch break.

"Part of his job involves serving the public, and it's embarrassing for the rest of us when he smells of alcohol.

"But the worst thing is his inflexibility. I think that because the rest of his life is in chaos because of his alcoholism, he needs to be in total control of his work."

Wyatt has raised the matter with her boss, but so far there seems to be nothing she can do. The ways in which his performance has been affected, she says, are too subtle and difficult to measure.

She tried telling him directly that she thought his drinking was affecting his work, but he simply denied it.

When band leader Jack Brown - that's not his real name, though he will say he runs an Auckland jazz band - was confronted with a musician with a drinking problem, he simply stopped hiring him for gigs.

"When he was 'on', the music he was playing was great, but when he was on the booze he wasn't up to scratch," he says.

"I never knew if he'd turn up drunk or sober.

"Even if he appeared sober when we started out, he'd often drink enough during the night and not be playing well enough by the end of the night.

"He was just too unpredictable, and when you're playing live music, there isn't room for that."

Former New Zealand Herald journalist Murray Mason remembers how on his first day at the paper, 30 years ago, another reporter invited him to join everyone at the pub for the two-hour dinner break.

Two-hour drinking sessions in the middle of his shift became the norm - as they were for many people in the different culture of the time - and most nights after work, as well.

"One rule I made for myself was never to take a day off work because of alcohol, no matter how bad I was feeling," Mason says.

In his years as a heavy drinker there were two occasions when drink made him forgetful while on the job.

And many years on, he's still too mortified to discuss what happened.

Neither incident was disastrous, but both had to be rectified in a last-minute panic effort by Mason and other staff.

"Control is the issue," he says. "You've got to recognise that it can affect your work, and make sure you're in control of the alcohol rather than it being in control of you."

Alcoholism and alcohol in general is a difficult area for bosses. Drinking is legal, and most of us do it. And many of us have been to work the morning after the night before feeling slightly under the weather.

And unless you're drinking in work time, you might well feel that it's your own private business.

The fact that drinking in work time and/or on work premises is often officially sanctioned - working lunches in the boardroom or in a restaurant, for example, or a few beers at work on Friday afternoon - further muddies the waters.

A survey in 2000 of New Zealanders' drinking habits by the then Alcohol and Public Health Research Unit found that men drank 5 per cent of their total alcohol consumption at work, and women 2 per cent.

Rebecca Williams, director of Alcohol Healthwatch, says the sort of problem Jill Wyatt is experiencing with her staffer presents a strong case for an office policy on alcohol and other drugs.

"Employers can either encourage the [drinking] behaviour or support the cure. We're a lot less tolerant with people who use illicit drugs."

Colin Bramfitt says his organisation, Foundation for Alcohol and Drug Education, was established to educate high school students, but in the past two years there has been a significant increase in demand for its services from employers.

"That's a reflection of the usage patterns and availability," he says. "Over the past five years we've softened the laws about availability of alcohol and we've become better at producing it and promoting it, and we've lowered the drinking age."

The focus is always on health and safety at work, he says.

"Most of the companies coming to us are safety-critical, like forestry, oil refineries and forklift drivers. But we've also had some companies coming to us who are dealing with less obvious issues.

"For example, if someone who's doing data input is affected by alcohol while they're working, they probably won't be quite so accurate."

Fade helps companies to develop alcohol and drug policies, and it's important, Bramfitt says, that these have an emphasis on education.

"If the focus seems to be on catching people out, then it won't be well received by staff."

He says many employees with kids have also found the programmes useful because they have offered ways of identifying and dealing with alcohol misuse in their teenagers.

Williams says local research hasn't been done into the relationship between hard-drinking employees and the quality of their work, though international research suggests the impact is major.

One British estimate is that alcohol misuse is associated with between eight million and 14 million days' excess absence, costing industry some £700 million ($2.24 billion) a year.

In 1995, United States research estimated absenteeism because of alcohol abuse was costing US$119 billion ($246 billion).

The British Medical Association recently estimated that as many as one in 12 doctors are abusing alcohol and/or other drugs, and that increased stress is driving some doctors to suicide and mental breakdown.

Also in Britain, a lawyers' assistance programme to aid members of the legal profession with alcohol problems is planned, and a similar scheme is already available to dentists.

The United States National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says drinking rates may vary among occupations, but alcohol-related problems are not characteristic of any particular social segment, industry, or occupation.

It cites studies of male-dominated occupations with cultures of heavy drinking, in which workers use boozing to build solidarity and show conformity to the group.

Conversely, in predominantly female occupations, both male and female employees are less likely to drink and to have alcohol-related problems than employees of both sexes in male-dominated occupations.

The issues of alcohol are often cyclical, says Williams, which contributes to their complexity.

Feeling alienated at work, and doing work that is boring, stressful, or isolating, can contribute to damaging amounts of drinking. An unhealthy relationship with alcohol may damage people's chances of promotion to more interesting, challenging and satisfying roles - and the existence of a schism between the drinkers and the non-drinkers in a workplace can create tension.

Other factors that may contribute to drinking include lack of job autonomy or complexity, lack of control over work conditions and products, verbal and physical aggression, and disrespectful behaviour.

What on-the-job boozing does to you

* According to the Institute of Alcohol Studies in Britain, a raised blood-alcohol level while at work will jeopardise efficiency and safety, increasing the likelihood of mistakes, errors of judgment and accidents. Impairment of skills begins with any significant amount of alcohol in the body.

* Even if you're not drunk on the job, persistent heavy drinking can also lead to a range of social, psychological and medical problems, and is associated with impaired work performance and increased sickness absence.

* Lost productivity accounts for the bulk of costs to industry associated with alcohol misuse, outweighing, for example, costs to health services.

If you are concerned about how your drinking might be impacting on your career, check out the website www.alcohol.org.nz, run by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand.

It contains comprehensive self-tests so you can check your drinking patterns, and suggests sources of further information.

The Christchurch-based Alcohol Drug Association runs a helpline and referral service on (0800) 787-797. It's open 10am to 10pm, seven days.






Alcohol.org.nz

Alcohol Healthwatch

FADE

Institute of Alcohol Studies