Some organizations may have separate smoking and vaping policies, while others may add an addition on vaping or e-cigarettes to their current smoking policy. Either way, it`s worth having clear rules and communicating them to your employees. It is also useful to consult with a recognized union or a representation of elected employees to convince employees to follow the rules you want to implement. As an ongoing measure, it may be helpful to have signs or notices in the workplace that clearly indicate where vaping is permitted and where it is prohibited, including rules for tobacco and e-cigarette users. Watching employees vape at work can be more than just an annoying productivity well – it can also trigger smoking. In a related Truth Initiative study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, nearly half of current tobacco users (46% to 48%) reported that workplace vaping is a trigger for their own vaping or smoking, and 7% of former users cited it as a trigger. Smokers were about twice as likely as e-cigarette users to report that it was a trigger for them to smoke when they saw someone vaping at work, and those who used both cigarettes and e-cigarettes were more than three times more likely than e-cigarette users alone to report that someone vaping at work was a trigger for them to smoke. These findings suggest that vaping in the workplace may undermine the efforts of those trying to quit smoking and put those who have successfully quit at risk of relapse. Until indoor air quality laws and requirements that include e-cigarettes are generally passed at the federal, state, and local levels, employers should take steps to ban tobacco use and encourage cessation. Resources for implementing indoor air quality policies in the workplace can help employers begin the process of protecting employee health. As companies prepare the necessary adjustments to protect their employees from the current pandemic, they can also implement basic policies to ensure a smoke- and steam-free workplace.
If vaping in the workplace is prohibited or restricted to designated areas, unauthorized use of vaping equipment, such as outside of normal rest periods or in prohibited areas, may result in disciplinary action, including dismissal. Nevertheless, any disciplinary action taken against an employee for vaping in the workplace must be fair. This means that the employee must be informed of any vaping prohibition or restriction, either through clear warnings or a written workplace policy. For example, if your organization already has a smoking policy but it doesn`t apply to e-cigarettes, employees may be confused about whether workplace vaping is covered. Therefore, the wording of this policy needs to be revised. Your staff should also be notified of any changes to a workplace policy before it comes into effect and provide appropriate notice of such changes. There are many reasons why it makes sense to add vaping to your smoke-free workplace policies. First, you need to protect all employees from potentially harmful particulate emissions. Second, there is a risk that e-cigarette devices will explode on the job and cause burns and projectile injuries to employees. From 2015 to 2017, about 2,035 e-cigarette explosions and burns were reported in U.S.
hospital emergency rooms. Banning e-cigarette devices eliminates the risk of malfunction in the workplace. If you have a designated smoking and vaping area, say so. If you do not, indicate that the use of these products is not permitted anywhere on the company`s premises. If your employees use company vehicles, be sure to include your vaping or smoking policy in those vehicles. If your employees work outdoors, such as to attend meetings or events, include your smoking and vaping policies in these areas during work hours. The Truth Initiative study found that about half — 48.6% — of all employees said they would use a cessation program themselves or help a family member or child quit vaping. Of e-cigarette users who wanted to quit smoking in the next six months, more than 70 percent said they would likely use medication or a digital smoking cessation program. Despite broad support, only one-third (31%) of jobs have such smoking cessation programs. However, for most states, it is not clear from the law whether indoor vaping is prohibited or not. However, some cities and local governments have passed laws specifically addressing e-cigarettes and banning their use in indoor workplaces.
In a study published in the American Journal of Health Behavior, the Truth Initiative found that the majority of current e-cigarette users (53.5%) support vaping policies at work and nearly three-quarters (73.5%) of employees supported e-cigarette-free workplaces, in a sample of U.S. adults working for mid-sized companies in November 2019. Nie users and former e-cigarette users were significantly more likely to support e-cigarette workplace work policies than current e-cigarette users. Some employers don`t have explicit guidelines or haven`t thought carefully about how they want to deal with vaping, Hux said. “Other employers have superficially added it to a smoking policy.” While the debate over the level of safety of e-cigarettes continues, with the long-term effects of their use on people`s health not yet conclusive, they are generally considered safer for users than smoked tobacco. There is also very little evidence of harm to bystanders from exposure to e-cigarette vapor, where the health risks of passive vaping are likely to be low. If a workplace already has an air quality policy but doesn`t reference e-cigarettes, employees may be confused about whether vaping is covered, Betts said. “It`s probably time to revise the language.” However, in some cases, an employer may decide not to allow the use of vaping devices on-site and ask employees not to vape until they are off-site. Many organizations will be interested in treating e-cigarettes as other age-restricted products and banning their use, especially if they need to protect the risk of ingestion by youth, such as in a school, kindergarten, or other environment where the employee works with children or teens. E-cigarettes (also known as e-cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vaporizers, and electronic nicotine delivery systems) are battery-powered devices that sometimes look like a traditional cigarette, pen, or USB stick, but can take a variety of other forms. Users blow them to inhale an aerosol that typically contains nicotine, flavorings, and other chemicals — although not all e-cigarettes contain nicotine.
The use of these devices is commonly referred to as vaping. About half of participants believed that vaping at work reduced productivity among non-vapers (52.1%, N = 807). Table 2 shows that the perception that workplace vaping reduces productivity varies considerably depending on participants` e-cigarette and fuel cigarette consumption status, age, household income, education and workplace industry.