How is the Clean Air Act affecting your productivity

Back in september Penna's Clean indoor air act took effect. It meant no more smoking inside your workplace.

Our policy beforehand was "smoke them if you got'em" However under this act this policy was banned. Now we have a designated smoking area outside. But it is seeming to fail. You got the guys who may smoke once or twice during the day and then you got the others who smoke like a solid waste burning facility. A sign out list was developed but then you got guys all but watching when someone was signing in to get their turn... Rather than watching what they are doing...

Alot of other states have already had this act in place long before PA any suggestions on how it affected your old policy/made a new successful policy

That was put in place here a few years ago, also in bars, etc. In the work environment people simply go out at break time and that is it. For a while some places has inside smoke rooms, not sure if that still works or not or if it got banned too. I don't smoke

We don't care. We have 2 smokers, and they smoke in the shop constantly. Just not up front in the offices. I've also been known to light up a cigar when I'm putting in some OT on the weekends. Call me a bad person.

Well the shop manager is a nutcase about smoking, He just wanted to ban it all together but union bargained for a alternative.

As far as puffing on the job...
IMHO outta sight outta mind whats done behind closed doors is never seen

One apparently unwritten rule of our society is that smokers can just toss their butts anywhere at any time, and it is not littering? Is it due to ignorance or arrogance, I'm not sure. One of these days, I'm going to make a new 'friend' by picking his disgard up and dropping it back in his shirt pocket

I allowed one worker to smoke while working, years ago, until the day he fat fingered his manual lathe in an emergency near the chuck. I told him no smoking except on your coffee break. Even that is a gift, like allowing someone to fog his mind for better performance.....doesn't make sense. But I was guilty of giving him permission because I was a greedy entrepeneur and wanted his labor services, impairment and all.

Here in MT the shop I work for eliminated smoking on campus completely, you must clock out and leave the property. 100% legal, state backed and OSHA compliant. We lost a few people but they were lousy workers anyway. Quit your job over a bad habit, LOSERS!! Our local hospital just went that way also. It's the way of the future like it or not.

mtsmetzler said:

Here in MT the shop I work for eliminated smoking on campus completely...

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I assume you work for a college. Been there.
The place I worked for had 3 tenured professors that chain smoked. Back then smoking wasn't considered a "national epidemic" the way it is today.
I'm quite certain nobody is going to tell them to stop smoking. They rule. They WILL get around it. That would be funny to watch: firing the rain-makers because they smoke.

mtsmetzler said:

We lost a few people but they were lousy workers anyway. Quit your job over a bad habit, LOSERS!! .

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LOSERS, huh ? I doubt they quit just because of the but ban. They probably think the self righteous health Nazi's left behind are the losers. I'm sure they they gave up huge salaries so they could smoke.

mtsmetzler said:

Our local hospital just went that way also. It's the way of the future like it or not.

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Our's too. How stupid. They are always claiming they want to hire the brightest most diverse people. It is my experience that the most competent people in any business don't want little pricks scrutinizining all of their bad habits. Imagine hiring a top executive and the human resources pleebe tells him this is a "Smoke Free Zone".
mtsmetzler,please don't tell me this is a good thing.

SM

fanelli18 said:

Back in september Penna's Clean indoor air act took effect. It meant no more smoking inside your workplace.

Alot of other states have already had this act in place long before PA any suggestions on how it affected your old policy/made a new successful policy

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None. Haven't worked in a smoking workplace since 1994. At work the smokers all go outside and stand in the rain, snow, cold and what have you.

Gene

mtsmetzler said:

Here in MT the shop I work for eliminated smoking on campus completely, you must clock out and leave the property. 100% legal, state backed and OSHA compliant. We lost a few people but they were lousy workers anyway. Quit your job over a bad habit, LOSERS!! Our local hospital just went that way also. It's the way of the future like it or not.

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Our best people on my shift smoke. By "best" I mean that they have the most seniority, skills, knowledge and connections "upstairs". If our smokers quit we'd lose probably sixty to seventy percent of our experienced senior staff. Definitely would cause us a lot of hardship.

Way of the Future? We'll see about that. By the way, I do not smoke.

Gene

Well, I dont know nothing about the Clean Air Act- I am out in the country, no guvvernmint agents come around- But I do know, the times I have had employees that smoked- THAT affected my productivity.
I figure that an employee that smokes probably does about 15% less work, in the same time, for the same money, as one that doesnt.
Every time I turned around, they were out sneaking a butt. It adds up- a pack a day, at a minimum of 5 minutes a smoke, is a lot of MY TIME that I was paying for.

I dont smoke, never have, and I dont like my guys smoking in my shop- so we have always had an unofficial "take it outside" rule, for 25 years I have had employees, and I have had some really good guys working for me over the years who smoked- but every time an employee smokes, it COSTS me more than one who doesnt.

If I was a big enough company that this law affected me, I would be happy about it- but generally, I try not to hire smokers. I have in the past, and probably will in the future, hire guys (and girls) who smoke, but, if it is a straight up choice between two equally qualified hires, one who smokes and one who doesnt, its a no-brainer to me.

I've actually heard that they've done studies on smokers and found that they tend to be harder working overall than non-smokers and more work-a-holics tend to smoke. It has something to do with their addictive personalities.

Don't shoot the messenger..........that's just what I've heard.

I've been smoke free for about 4 years know (believe it or not, I can't recall for sure what year I quit) after smoking 3-4 packs a day for at least 25 years.

I guess the guys they studied just never worked for me.
I can only base my opinion on my own study- since I have had employees, starting in about 1982, I have employed probably 50 people or so.
And without an exception, the ones who didnt smoke got more hours in than the ones who did smoke.
I run a pretty loose shop. My guys take breaks, and lunch, when they want, as long as they get the job done. So I suppose if I had somehow mandatory time limits on breaks, or number of breaks per day, it might be different- but as it is, there is no question that smoking, the physical act, just plain takes time. And standing outside, smoking, is not working.

This is not to say that some of the guys who have smoked have not been faster workers, when they were working- some have. And some of em have been slower, too.

Generally, though, smokers also get sick more, at least in my experience, and, when you are talking about 20 something guys, they tend to drink more too- which means more mondays where they call in sick, and more "slow" mornings, if you know what I mean.

I have hired smokers, and probably will again- IF they are skilled, and good workers, but there is no way you are gonna convince me that smoking somehow makes you into SuperShopWorker.

3 to 4 packs a day? Man, thats what, 60 to 80 cigarettes? at 5 minutes each? Thats almost 7 hours a day of smoking. Now I know you smoked WHILE you worked, but I have tried eating chips while I worked, or drinking a soda- and you dont get much work done. Same with ciggy butts.

I smoked for about 10 years, I quit in 1988. I have four employees, none of them are smokers. (pure coincidence.) About 5 or 6 months ago, I happened to catch The History Of Tobacco on the history channel. If you smoke cigarettes, watching this documentary COULD change your mind and persuade you to quit. The outdated cigarettes go back to the factory where they are chopped up and soaked in chemicals. They squeeze the chemicals from the old tobacco and spray it on some thin paper. They shred it so that it looks like tobacco and call it "recon". Cigarettes are 40-60% recon.

Ries said:

3 to 4 packs a day? Man, thats what, 60 to 80 cigarettes? at 5 minutes each? Thats almost 7 hours a day of smoking. Now I know you smoked WHILE you worked, but I have tried eating chips while I worked, or drinking a soda- and you dont get much work done. Same with ciggy butts.

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Yeah.........I smoked at the machine. I never had a problem being productive running a machine and smoking. Believe me, I've had lot's of practice. For the most part, I ran a engine lathe and I've been told by more than one guy (and shop owners) that I'm just about the fastest man they had ever seen on a lathe.......all while chain smoking.

Now, if you don't allow smoking in the shop, I would have to agree that you are going to have a hard time finding a smoker that's going to work out for you, because cigarettes are on their mind ALL DAY LONG, even if you only allow them to smoke on break.

Rockfish and David,

Congradulations on kicking the habit! I still have not been able to kick it. I remember reading that study you mentioned - but never paid any attention to it.

I do agree with you about Ries' situation, and anyone else in the same situation. that smokers will not work out for him for the exact reason you mentioned.

For most of my life, I worked in the construction business, either in close supervisitory positions (ie. lead man or job foreman) or self-employed usually with employees. But I did not see the correlations between a lack of speed or accuracy, excessive drinking, sickness or absenteism and smoking that Reis has experienced.

The biggest correlation between sickness and absenteeism I have seen since 1970 is the number of young children an employee, co-worker, friend or relative had. Those with children between kindergarden and 8th grade who were stuffed in those germ factories 7 hours a day were the ones who missed a lot of time, and often brought down a lot of the rest of the crew.

The big boozers didn't last long enough to worry about.

But in the construction business, no one cared about smoking, and about half the guys had butts hanging out of their mouths half the time while they worked , just like I did.

Nor would I have cared if they worked while drinking a pepsi, so long as they could lip it or jam it between two fingers while standing on a ladder and nailing off blocking or crown molding.

But pistaccios were strickly prohibited except at lunch.

I smoked for 20 years. It's been 15 since I quit. Part of my motivation to quit was when smoking was banned in the shop. In the shop, no special breaks are allowed for smokers. In some of the other departments, people take smoke breaks whenever they want. As far as I am concerned, it's an addiction. You want to take a break to get some more of this drug in your system. Too bad, wait until break. If it's so tough, you should quit, as I did. On the rare occasion one of them suggests I should change the policy to match the other departments, I reply that I would be happy to arrange a transfer, with the appropriate pay cut for the less skilled job.