Weyco Smoking Policy: Employee Health and Workplace Rights

Introduction: Where Work Life Ends and Private Life Begins

When does one's private life begin, and one's work life end? When an employee leaves the building of his or her place of employment? What about lifestyle choices that drain the employer's healthcare budget — decisions that affect all workers? Although American culture may enjoy pretending that the two spheres of work and private life are neatly separated, personal ethics naturally bleed into professional conduct. One's ability to do a credible job and command respect as a leader requires a peak state of physical as well as moral and intellectual health. This is clear in any military organization.

But even in the ordinary American workplace, employee health and organizational performance cannot always be separated so neatly. This is made clear in SHRM's article by Beth McConnell about a Michigan company called Weyco that has not only banned smoking from its workplace, but has prohibited all workers from smoking even when they are not officially on company time.

The Weyco Policy and Its Consequences

Weyco Incorporated is a benefits services company. It announced in October 2003 that, beginning January 2005, it would terminate all employees who smoked — even if they smoked only off company premises or in their own homes (Weyers, 2005). To show compassion toward potentially at-risk employees who had demonstrated loyal company service, the company offered smoking cessation courses. It eventually fired the four workers who refused to take a nicotine test to prove that they were tobacco-free (McConnell, 2005).

Comparing Lifestyle Policies: Smoking, Sexuality, and Disability

The question of how lifestyle choices outside of workplace performance should be addressed has, of course, been confronted by the military with regard to sexuality — hence the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Smoking is an addiction, but one could argue it is more of a choice than an individual's sexuality. Yet even pre-existing genetic conditions do not guarantee a universal right to employment or military service; anyone with severe asthma or flat feet, for example, cannot automatically assume the right to serve. The Americans with Disabilities Act similarly allows that employers cannot necessarily accommodate every condition of every employee.

The Weyco website, responding to criticism, defended its position by stating that smoking employees of Michigan businesses each cost their companies — and thus shareholders, fellow workers, and company owners — an additional $4,000 per year in absenteeism, medical benefits, and earnings lost to sickness and premature death (McConnell, 2005). However, employees with disabilities who can still perform their jobs effectively cannot be discriminated against, nor can an employee with a genetic predisposition to cancer be excluded from a healthcare plan simply because he or she is more costly to cover.

Conclusion: Balancing Employer Interests and Employee Rights

This article raises important questions about how off-hours habits and pursuits affect fellow employees — financially, and in terms of morale within a company striving to build a healthy and productive workforce. Weyco's policy may be too punitive for a civilian organization, but its commitment to employee fitness — evidenced by its extensive healthcare benefits plan, its free on-site fitness center, and other employee amenities — demonstrates that it has made a critical moral, if not legal, point: one never truly leaves one's personal health and safety issues at home.