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As vaping has become a popular alternative to smoking, more and more people have taken up the habit. This means that some employees may wish to vape during their work hours. However, as a business owner, you must consider a few issues that can result from workplace vaping.
Vaping is a relatively new form of nicotine intake. As such, it can be difficult to understand which aspects to consider. It may even be difficult to understand what vaping actually is. Moreover, you might not even know about the companies that provide this nicotine alternative, though Pure E-Liquids is one example.
However, in the UK, Public Health England—also known as PHE—has created a simple framework for advising organizations about workplace vaping. We offer here the principles from PHE. Whether your business is in the UK or elsewhere, they may help you with developing vaping policies for your workplace.
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5 Principles for Business Owners to Follow
PHE has suggested that there are five principles that business owners should consider when trying to understand workplace vaping:
- Business owners must make a very clear distinction between vaping and smoking. For example, they must make clear that the policies on their current employees who smoke and those who vape are different. That’s because of the health differences between the two practices.
- PHE has also advised that business owners make sure that their policies on vaping are informed by the possibility of risk that vaping might pose to bystanders. However, as vaping is relatively new, these vaping-near-bystanders policies may be different, depending on the employer as well as what the business does.
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- Much like with the point above, PHE also suggests that business owners have a responsibility not only to identify, but also to manage the risks of vaping around children and young people. However, again, this is dependent on what your business entails as well as who you employ.
- Vaping is mostly considered a healthier way of taking in nicotine. Therefore, it supports your employees in quitting smoking and staying smoke-free. This is also one of PHE’s principles of vaping in the workplace. This comes as a direct result of the UK government’s Five Year Tobacco Control plan for England.
- PHE also suggests that business owners must support compliance with the new smoke-free law and policies. These were created for the safety and well-being of the public. This principle, too, has resulted from the government’s Five Year Tobacco Control plan. This intends to implement policies aimed at promoting employers to try to encourage their employees to give up smoking, not only in the workplace but also altogether.
What Else Should You Keep in Mind About Workplace Vaping?
The five points detailed here are just a few of the considerations you can take into account as part of your policies on workplace vaping.
Keep in mind that the elements of your workplace vaping policies will depend on what your business is as well as who you employ. However, vaping in the workplace is likely to become more popular as time progresses. Therefore, you must carefully consider each aspect of your new policies on workplace vaping.
