Employers

Businesses Take the Lead

Maine's Good Work! program helps achieve our goal of making workplaces 100% tobacco-free and creating a safer and more productive workplace. Those who participate in the Good Work! program are employers who have created tough smoke-free policies that exceed the state law on secondhand smoke exposure.

A Healthy and More Productive Workplace

With your leadership, you can help us with our mission to clear the air in our state and its communities. Through Good Work! employers receive support, policy templates, and everything they need to make implementing a policy easy.

Smoke-Free Policies Save Your Business Money

A study of nearly 375,000 employees found that productivity losses associated with absenteeism accounted for 34% of all health- and productivity-related expenditures for both mental and physical health conditions.

When employee health improves, the benefits multiply:

• Smoking contributes toward absenteeism and lost productivity.
• Employees who smoke are absent from work 50% more often than those who don’t smoke.
• Smoking affects insurance costs – smoking is the leading cause of preventable death, and businesses pay 80% of all health insurance premiums.
• Some fire and casualty companies cut their premiums by 50% for smoke-free companies.
• Smoke-free workplaces cut ventilation costs, maintenance costs, and increases productivity.
• Smoke-free workplaces cut costs associated with disability and retirement.

Consider the additional benefits of a smoke-free workplace:

• Successful employee health initiatives provide leverage for negotiating with insurers and workers compensation carriers.
• Employers with health promotion and disease prevention experience will have more information to make decisions about purchasing health care benefits and considering self-insurance.
• The company image can be improved by developing a reputation as an employer that cares about its employees and the community in which it does business.

Put a Policy in Writing

A smoke-free workplace policy doesn’t have to be long or complicated. Using our sample policies and templates can make implementing a policy in your workplace easy.

Find out how to implement a smoke-free policy.

View the Good Work! Resource Kit.

Get Breathe Easy signs that tell your staff, your customers and your community that they are in a smoke-free business. Contact PTM for more information.

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