I had the pleasure last Wednesday (Sept. 17) of serving as moderator for a pair of panel discussions related to addictions in the workplace.
The discussions were the direct result of a grant secured jointly by Rhode Island PBS, Roger Williams Medical Center and Providence Business News from Sound Partners for Community Health.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
As part of the initiative, the three partners produced an hour-long documentary and resource guide.
It was an enlightening experience. The guests for both panel discussions brought interesting perspectives to each discussion. Those perspectives ranged from doctors and nurses sharing the medical components of addictive behaviors, to personnel issues that inevitably arise in the workplace.
My job as a print journalist isn’t complicated. As the saying goes, the idea is “to make a long story short.” So here’s what I took out of my discussions with people who know a whole lot more about these issues than I do.
First, if you don’t think addictive behaviors, whether they be a dependence on alcohol, nicotine, cocaine or the Internet, are taking a toll on your bottom line, you’re simply misinformed. Just think about the absenteeism caused by addictive behaviors.
But that is just part of the story. It is impossible to assign a price tag for workers who are not as productive because they are drunk or to quantify the price of plummeting morale at your business when some employees are forced to pick up the slack for others.
Addictions are a disease. And there is no panacea to cure them. It takes time. It takes patience.
I could fill pages with information from the professionals who appeared on the panels and in the video. Here is just some of the wisdom they shared.
Dr. Robert C. Fusco traveled here from San Francisco, where he is chief clinical officer at United Behavioral Health, a UnitedHealth Group Company. He came armed with some telling statistics.
The expenses are everywhere. Fusco pointed out that absenteeism at work is up to three times more common in people with addictions and that people with addictions are four times as likely to utilize our hospitals.
Lincoln D. Almond, a partner in the Providence law firm Edwards & Angell and son of the former governor, brought his experiences in labor law.
Successful business people, he said, tend to be problem solvers. It’s their nature. But addictions are not easily solved. It’s not as easy as sending someone away for a couple of weeks to get better and then to expect them to return as your top sales performer or office manager.
“Employers tend to have an unrealistic perception of what it takes to solve a problem,” said Almond.
Mederic McLaughlin, director of behavioral health and case management at Roger Williams Medical Center, suggested that it is important to address issues of addiction before a person hits “rock bottom” whenever possible.
Doing so, said McLaughlin, allows for leverage in fostering treatment. In addition to saving a job, a marriage be hanging in the balance.
“The single most important thing an employer can do is to have an effective Employee Assistance Program,” he said. “This is a treatable, medical condition.”
Judith G. Hoffman, a social worker and vice president of EAP programs for Resource International Employee Assistance Services, sees addiction as a “complicated illness.”
“We have to provide employees with a safe place,” she said.
Donna Peterson, a registered nurse and the day treatment clinician at Roger Williams Medical Center, echoed that sentiment.
“People think it has something to do with will power,” she said. “It has nothing to do with will power.”
That’s something Sandy Hill learned. It took her a while. Hill was a guest on both panel discussions and is featured in the PBS video. Her drink of choice was vodka. It did a job on her.
She recognizes now that she wasn’t the productive worker she should have been. Not when she was carrying little bottles of booze with her in her purse.
She wasn’t the same at home either. And the money that she handed over so easily those days to the folks at Lincoln Park, well, it just makes her sick.
But that was then. And this is now.
Hill’s message to anyone who will listen is a simple one. But it comes from the heart.
“There is help out there,” she said.
Hill found that help at home in a devoted and patient husband. And she found it at an outpatient clinic at Roger Williams Medical Center.
She hasn’t had a drink in about a year-and-a-half. And that’s really the point. Addictions are treatable. They don’t have to cost us the terrible price we are paying.
The documentary produced by Rhode Island PBS is available on VHS. You may want to show it to your managers or employees. You can order it by calling 222-3636. A nominal fee will be charged to cover the duplication.
