Dive Brief:
- Hangovers from alchohol and drug abuse cost Australian employers more than $3 billion a year in lost productivity due to workers calling in sick, according to an article at Radio New Zealand News.
- Researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, which specializes in addiction, estimate sick leave taken by people coping with the after-effects of alcohol costs $2 billion, and leave taken in the wake of other drug use amounts to $1 billion.
- The National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction said that cost was over and above general absenteeism, and researchers said those levels of absenteeism also increased as a worker's level of alcohol consumption went up.
Dive Insight:
The research team examined data from two questions included in the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey. They add that changing workplace and employee attitudes towards drinking could go a long way towards helping people avoid taking sick days as often (and reducing the country's addiction statistics).
According to the researchers, 11.5 million sick days are taken every year by Australians suffering from the after-effects of drugs and alcohol. "We know that people tend to be reasonably accurate, reasonably honest about these things, but if anything it's an underestimate," said Anne Roche, who led the research team.
Chris Raine, founder of a health promotion charity that is trying to change Australia's binge-drinking culture, said the figure was to be expected. Raine said changing workplace culture around Friday afternoon drinks can also help, noting that every Friday afternoon managers often reward staff for the hard work that they do by buying drinks -- part of the Australian culture.
Raine argues that a healthier way to reward staff could be to invest in activities like massages, yoga or team sport. "Specifically on Friday afternoon there's a two to three afternoon window that if we got that right, as a country and as a workforce, actually that would change the whole dynamic of the way we use alcohol and drugs on the weekend," he said.
