The great difficulty, as all health professionals will know, is that smoking is not an entirely voluntary act. Many people who smoke do so because they are addicted to nicotine (and it is worth remembering that many studies have shown nicotine addiction is harder to kick than heroin addiction) so simply having a blanket ban will not get rid of your employees' need to smoke. Many of your employees will be spending the vast majority of the day in the workplace – how do you cope with their needs? In addition the business will owe a legal duty of trust and confidence to its employees – which, if breached, will allow the employee to resign and claim constructive unfair dismissal. How can you prohibit your employees from smoking at work whilst also maintaining your duty of trust and confidence towards them?

Take an example of a female employee, who has worked for the business for 35 years and has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for the past 40 years. Can it be fair that you simply tell her that she is now no longer able to smoke at all during her working day and leave it at that? What happens if she wants to smoke in her lunch break? Can you stop her from doing that? And even if you could – do you want a stressed out, anxious and edgy employee counting the seconds until they finish work so they can light up? Simply telling this lady that she cannot smoke at all during her working day may be a breach of trust and confidence.

The easiest way to deal with these issues is to draw up a smoking policy for your business, which will cover the following points:

• Confirmation of when the law prohibiting smoking in the workplace comes (or came) into effect
  
  
• Explain the impact of this new law upon your employees (i.e. smoking and non-smoking) and your customers
  
  
• Confirm that this new law and policy also apply to any cars which the employee uses and which any other employee also has the use of and mention the health benefits of bringing in this new law
  
  
• Confirmation that anyone smoking in breach of this policy will be committing misconduct, which will be regarded as gross misconduct if the employee continually fails to comply with the policy. This must be linked in to your existing disciplinary policy
  
  
• Explain that your employees may continue to smoke outside working hours – but that if they want assistance in kicking the habit, the business will provide them with details of non-smoking clinics to help them do that
  
  It is a matter of degree here – NICE has suggested that employers give smoking employees paid time off to attend non-smoking courses clinics, even suggesting that employers contribute to the price of tobacco patches. You are not legally obliged to provide these sorts of services to your employees – and if you fund one employee's attempts to give up smoking you will set a precedent and will have to offer other smoker employees the same. The important point is to have a clear and transparent policy and stick with it
  
  
• Explain the impact of this policy upon those employees who wish to continue to smoke
  
  
• This is the section that requires the most thought. Clearly they cannot smoke in the workplace since of the ban. However, what is the business's position on ‘smoke breaks?' If your smoker employee is nipping out for a quick fag once every couple of hours, that will cause very understandable annoyance to all those non-smoking employees who are not allowed to ‘nip out' during their working day. Do you indicate that smokers may only go outside for a cigarette during their usual breaks (i.e. when other employees make themselves a cup of tea etc)? Alternatively, you could have designated smoking breaks (for which employees are not paid) so that either they work less hours (and are accordingly paid less) or that their lunch break is reduced (so that they still work the same number of hours in the day and their pay remains the same)
  
  
• When your employee does nip out to have a smoke, do you want him/ her huddled outside the workplace? What sort of impression will that give your customers? What about the dropped stubs which will litter the entrance? A solution may be that you also ban smoking immediately outside the business's premises – with a specific instruction that they cannot smoke immediately outside the workplace – and anyone found doing so will be subjected to disciplinary action
  
  
• Remember that a policy can only be relied upon if you can prove that all employees have received it – so either hand-deliver it to all employees or ensure that it is enclosed within their pay-slip and they sign a note to confirm receipt