ALCOHOL AT WORK PLACE

Effects of Alcohol in the Work Place

Effects of Alcohol in the Work Place

Introduction

Modern industrial work requires demands strong psycho sensory and mental abilities. An alcoholic worker can hardly respond to this demand. In the world of work, alcohol abuse remains one of key concerns for employers. Alcoholism at work; be it acute or chronic, effects the entrepreneur, the hierarchy, and the colleagues work. It results in sufferings on part of employees and employers alike. Employees suffer from physical, economic and psychological effects; and employers suffer from lost productivity, absenteeism and turnovers (Clark, 2005). This paper explores the physical, economic, and psychological effects of alcohol abuse at the work place. The paper also proposes how reduction in employee's stress could lead to alleviating alcoholism at the workplace.

Physical Effects

The initial euphoric effects of alcohol and anesthesia can confuse the workers who are stronger and able to work, but this is misleading, and increases the risk of accidents. People work hard and are exposed to high temperatures during the habit of refreshing beverages. If alcoholism takes place in an environment that contains smoke and dust, more mucous membranes dry out. This anomaly may harm workers in vulnerable environments like mines and steel mills (Majorca, 2006).

Moreover, alcoholism is reported to cause chemical reactions within our bodies. Some substances such as solvents can intensify the effects of alcohol on the nervous system. Other substances, when coupled with alcohol, can lead to intoxication of the body's metabolism. Finally, the intestinal absorption of alcohol can boost certain chemicals in the pharmaceutical industry as hypnotic, antibiotics, narcoleptics, or others such as mercury, arsenic, aniline, are absorbed.

Economical Effects

Professional consequences

The effects of alcohol are also radically felt at work: Among these are loss of motivation, slow, and unproductive work. Sometimes the alcoholic patient loses his notions of duty and responsibility, and it becomes difficult to count on him.

Fouls

The drunkenness is prohibited in the workplace. A simple misconduct could begin a disciplinary action against an employee found guilty. The sanction may include termination. The fault may also be due to an incident because of the state of alcohol (an accident due to inattention, endangerment of alcohol or colleagues) (Bacon, 1999).

Work accident

Alcohol alone is responsible for 10 to 20% of accidents. These incidents are most frequent among alcohol-dependent workers. This is especially true in areas where the activity is manual because the risk of injury is higher.

Absenteeism

Alcohol dependence ...