Booze costs Australian business $5.6 billion a year – does your workplace culture need to change?

Australia’s drinking culture is giving businesses a hangover, with the cost for lost productivity through hangovers and sickies, staff turnover and early retirement due to alcohol use estimated to be $5.6 billion a year.

A new report compiled for the Federal Department of Health and Ageing has found that 6.6% of the country’s workers who drink alcohol have turned up to work drunk in the last 12 months. In addition, one in six workers experienced physical abuse at work by a colleague under the influence of alcohol or drugs, while one in seven has experienced verbal abuse.

And the drinking doesn’t end at the pub, with 10% of employees saying they drink alcohol in the workplace, at least once a week, with nearly 9% drinking at “risky levels”.

The report by the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction at Flinders University was obtained by The Australian under freedom of information laws.

It said workplaces should play a key role in alcohol harm-intervention setting, as “workplace interventions are likely to be cost-effective and efficacious”.

“Due to the impact of alcohol use on workplace safety and productivity, employers are likely to be motivated to support interventions,” the report said.

The reports’ findings are not surprising, Australian Centre for Addiction Research Director Thiagarajan Sitharthan says.

“Drinking is seen as a natural thing to do at work and a normal part of workplace culture. Whether it’s car mechanics or lawyers, everyone starts drinking at the end of the work week… the cost of this culture of alcohol consumption is extremely high.”

“What [businesses] need to realise is that it is actually affecting productivity, because with alcohol use the concerns are not usually directly apparent. You don’t see the problems immediately, they creep up on you.”

And those who are able to hold a job may have the most trouble recognising their alcohol use is a problem, Sitharthan says.

But Sitharthan said that while the report shows how important alcohol education is at work, employers should not try to “single people out”.

“You don’t want [education] to become punitive, so it’s best to promote it as part of a healthy lifestyle package, together with healthy eating and the benefits of exercise. You make it part of a parcel and you include everyone… A lot of workplaces do this kind of thing already with gym memberships and the like, so it’s not too difficult to include alcohol education in that.”

Businesses can also promote healthy attitudes to drinking by increasing the number of non-drinking workplace activities, such as playing sports. But a zero-tolerance approach is unnecessary, Sitharthan says.