Going Tobacco Free

 

 

Creating completely tobacco free campuses (no tobacco use indoors or out) is an important step to creating a healthy work environment.  It provides cleaner air for employees and the public to breathe, but it also is a critical factor in health culture change.  Changing workplace culture to be more healthful can have a profound impact on employee behavior.  It is much easier to make healthy choices in a healthy environment.  Despite the benefits of tobacco free campuses, many businesses are hesitant to enact the policy.  Some possible reasons include difficult enforcement of the policy, anger from employees about what they perceive their right to use tobacco at work is, and lack of support from upper management.  In most cases, the fear of the situation is much greater than any possible challenges.  Most businesses foresee problems that don’t arise, or there are very few employees unhappy with the policy.  The majority of employees may be in favor of tobacco free campus policies.  For those of you that have tobacco free campus policies in place, what barriers did you encounter and how did you address them?  For those thinking about implementing a tobacco free campus policy, what issues are you currently facing?