HR Soapbox Blog

(Published November 16, 2009)

The Great American Smokeout^® challenges people to stop using tobacco products the third Thursday of every November (the 19th this year) with the hope that one day they will quit completely. Some employers are relying on more than just hope in their quest for a smoke-free workforce; they're refusing to hire anyone who smokes — on or off duty.

Penalizing an applicant for lawful off-duty behavior might seem extreme, but outside of states that prohibit discrimination against individuals based on their use of tobacco products (or otherwise prohibit discrimination based on lawful lifestyle choices), it's a perfectly legal practice.

My dad smoked a pack a day for more than 40 years. He only quit (most unwillingly!) after being diagnosed with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).  My dad is now retired, but I wonder how he would have responded to being passed over for a job because he was a smoker.  Would it have motivated him to quit smoking? Maybe, if he was in dire need of a job to put food on the table and economic conditions were such that jobs were few and far between. Absent that, though, I seriously doubt it. He would have just applied elsewhere.  But I guess the point of refusing to hire smokers isn't necessarily to motivate them to quit, it's most often to lower the employer's health benefits costs.

In this economy, I can't blame a company for wanting to reduce expenses any way it can.  While refusing to hire smokers isn't necessarily the way I would go about it if I was a CEO, the reality is that more and more CEOs are electing to maintain a smoker-free workforce. 

In such cases, I think it's imperative that the company communicates to applicants, in no uncertain terms, that it is company policy not to hire tobacco users, and that job offers are contingent on passing a nicotine test. This shouldn't come as a surprise after the applicant has already been through countless rounds of interviews. Why waste the applicant's (and the company's!) time?

Plus, if the company goes so far as to require current employees to also abstain from smoking on and off duty, it should give them adequate time and resources to kick the habit.  According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), all states run some type of free telephone-based tobacco-cessation support program. The ACS's Quitline^® tobacco cessation program links callers with trained counselors.  There are also numerous support groups across the country. For assistance in gathering information about resources in your area, call the ACS at 1-800-ACS-2345 (1-800-227-2345).

Melissa V. Pomerantz
Editor

(Published November 9, 2009)

Did you hear the one about the hotel owner in Taos, NM, who made some of his Hispanic employees anglicize their first names?  The punch line, and I quote: "It has nothing to do with racism.  I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything."  This is not a joke, and it's not funny.  His customer satisfaction justification is an insult to both his employees and to his customers. 

Whether he is conscious of it or not, this name-change request smacks of xenophobia.  The message I'm hearing is that we shouldn't have to accept that which is foreign to us until they become more like us.  I certainly don't understand his customer service rationale.  He didn't indicate that he received any complaints, so to me that says he's catering to an assumed desire of customers to not have to deal with ethnic names.  And even if someone had actually complained to him that, say, their check-in experience was poor because the employee's name was Juanita, someone needs to tell him that catering to customers who are dissatisfied because of the ethnicity, race, gender, religion, etc., of the person servicing them is a discrimination claim waiting to happen.
 
And what does this say about what he thinks about his customers?  I think he also insulted the rest of America, by implying that we are ignorant and unsophisticated because, in his words, we "don't know…Spanish anything."  Really???  Okay, so I don't have the ability to roll my Rs.  He's got me there.  In that case, it would be totally unprofessional to employ any Hispanic person with a name with an R in it.  (I'm kidding, of course!) 

I also have to say that if he thinks Anglican names don't ever cause issues, he's wrong.  Who hasn't mistaken Kerry for Carrie or Ron for Rob?  Is Ms. Johns going to be upset if I accidentally call her Ms. Jones?  Is Martin (Mar-TEEN) going to get mad if I accidentally mispronounce his name as Mar-tin?  I surely hope no good customer service rep would!

I really don't understand why he thinks exposure to another culture's names can have such a major effect on customer satisfaction.  If the employees are helpful and pleasant, what do their names matter?  Their names are probably not as foreign to — or uncomfortable for — his customers as he seems to think.  However, if this hotelier is so sure that his customers can benefit from renamed employees, perhaps he should follow Dr. Seuss's lead in The Cat In The Hat and refer to employees as Thing 1, Thing 2, and so on.  Everyone knows their numbers, right?

Gloria Ju
(Or, if I worked in that hotel, you could call me Lori Jones.  Or Thing 3.)
Editor in Chief