Alcohol Addicted Employees - Research Paper Example

Should the businesses punish alcohol addict employees and treating them? Abstract Alcoholism is not very uncommon in the society. Alcohol has a major impact on the lifestyle of its consumers. Alcohol affects health as well as mood. Alcohol addicts experience different sorts of sociological, psychological, and physical issues because of alcohol. Their tendency to be productive in the workplace is sapped by the consumption of alcohol. Bad mood, bad behavior, and their vulnerability to losing control makes them unsuitable for work or the organization’s reputation, profitability, and status is compromised. Employers need to take actions to deter alcohol consumption by employees ethically. Businesses should punish alcohol addict employees and treat them to the best of their capacity. Should the businesses punish alcohol addict employees and treating them? Alcohol is a very big problem of society in many countries across the world. While it is considered as one of the essentials for celebration, excessive consumption of alcohol leads to alcohol addiction. Alcohol addiction makes an individual unsuitable for work. Alcohol addicts experience mood swings and lose control over their mind. Overcome with the effects of alcohol, they say things to others that they do not really mean. They become violent in arguments and have a tendency to abuse people around them both verbally and physically. Owing to its negative sociological, psychological, and physical consequences as well as being a potential threat for businesses, alcohol addiction cannot be tolerated in the workplace, so employers should take all possible measures to deter alcohol consumption among the employees. Businesses should punish alcohol addict employees because alcohol is not appropriate for the regulation of anger. Alcohol addicts lose their minds if they happen to indulge in an argument. While they deal with things on a personal level, unnecessary and out of place argument with a client or a customer is detrimental to the interests of the organization. Businesses should punish alcohol addicts because alcoholism makes an individual untrustworthy. Alcohol addicts follow the drive and mood created after consuming alcohol. For many alcohol addicts, dealing with alcohol and its consequences is a life-long process. Many alcohol addicts cannot help themselves and consume it knowing how bad it is for them at a range of levels. Alcohol addicts cannot be trusted. They can storm out of the office to get alcohol any time without caring about work. Alcohol happens to be the most beloved thing and the top-most priority in the life of alcohol addicts. Work comes secondary which can be risky for the organization as a whole. Alcohol addicts can leave the whole team in the middle of a problem and back out from playing their role as expected by the rest of the team members. Owing to the display of such behavior, alcohol addicts are not trustworthy or reliable. Businesses should punish alcohol addict employees because this habit of these employees can incur the employers cost. Depending upon which area the business is located in, employers are responsible for the wellbeing of their employees. Employers are required by the government to pay taxes and insurance premiums for their employees in certain areas. Alcohol addict employees have a tendency to incur the employers unnecessary and avoidable cost. Health insurance premiums for such employees are higher. They are likely to take more days off from work thus compromising upon work and productivity and incurring the employer its cost. Similarly, there are a number of other ways in which alcohol addict employees charge their employers with cost and inconvenience. Punishing alcohol addict employees is part of the way how business entrepreneurs and employers should deal with such employees; treating the alcohol addict employees is the other part. Alcoholism is treatable. It does not qualify to be called a disease because there are no biological or genetic causes of alcoholism, and effects of alcohol are experienced only after and as long as alcohol is consumed. Consumption of alcohol is just a bad habit that its consumers are reluctant to abandon. “For many of these individuals, recovery is best described as a developmental process — a change in their motivation to obtain the substance of choice, a change in their capacity to control their thoughts and feelings, and/or a change in contextual (e.g., social, economic) factors that get them to work hard at overcoming their addiction” (Lewis, 2012). Businesses assume both a social and a moral responsibility to try to treat the alcoholic employees. In the contemporary age, businesses try to adopt a number of measures in their attempt to be socially responsible because corporate social responsibility is visualized and understood as a way of getting competitive advantage. Treating alcohol addict employees is a very obvious and a very effective way of being socially responsible. With each single employee that is alcohol addict, a whole family is associated. If an employer is able to improve the behavior of the alcohol addict employee to some extent, this comes as a big reward and relief for the people related to the employee as well. Morally, an employer should consider all their employees as their family members. A sense of unity and harmony cannot be fostered in the organizational culture until the employer provides the employees with a homelike environment. In such an environment, the employer plays the role of a role model or a mentor and enforces their decision for the well-being of all family members. This makes the employer morally obliged to try to treat the alcohol addict employee. Alcohol addicts need care. Alcoholism is not a disease but the condition of alcohol addicts gets worse and worse with the passage of time if they are not taken care of to the extent that it starts feeling like a progressive disease. “Calling addiction a “progressive disease” comes from looking at the few who have progressed to severe addiction and tracing the path by which they got there” (Peele, Brodsky, and Arnold, 1992). This implies that an employer must take care of alcohol addict employees. Taking care does not mean letting go of their habit and letting them do whatever they want. Taking care means discouraging the consumption of alcohol in all ways and if possible, try to take measures to treat such employees and rid them of such habits. An example of a very good course of action businesses can take to deal with the problem of addiction in employees is the use of employee assistance programs. These programs do not penalize employees if they use the appropriate way as dictated by these programs to reach out in search of help for addiction. In fact, most of such programs have a set of rules and regulations that deter any action against an employee requesting help from being taken. The aim of these programs is to provide employees with help they require to leave the habit of alcohol consumption in an encouraging, positive, and friendly way without being afraid of punishments or reprisals. The employee assistance program starts working toward making the required arrangements as soon as assistance is requested by a member or an employee. “This can include offering information and resources on various treatment options and drug rehab centers, counseling, transportation to a detox center, a residential inpatient program, partial hospitalization program or an intensive outpatient program” (Recovery First, 2013). Concluding, businesses should discourage alcohol consumption by employees in whatever way they can. Owing to the different sorts of negative sociological, psychological, and physical effects alcohol consumption has on the life of the consuming employee, it is simply intolerable at the workplace. Employers can best address this issue by using employee assistance programs. If they cannot be used, employers should go with any strategy to deter the consumption of alcohol among employees even if they have to punish employees for that. The only condition they should take care of is that the punishment or strategy they choose should be ethical and justifiable to the stakeholders. References: Lewis, M. (2012, Nov. 12). Why Addiction is NOT a Brain Disease. Retrieved from http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2012/11/12/why-addiction-is-not-a-brain-disease/. Peele, S., Brodsky, A., and Arnold, M. (1992). The Truth About Addiction and Recovery – Why It Doesn’t Make Sense To Call Addiction A “Disease”. Retrieved from http://lifeprocessprogram.com/the-truth-about-addiction-and-recovery-why-it-doesnt-make-sense-to-call-addiction-a-disease/. Recovery First. (2013). Employee Assistance Programs & Drug Addiction Treatment. Retrieved from http://www.recoveryfirst.org/employee-assistance-programs-drug-addiction-treatment.html/. Read More