Ocean State Job Lot Makes Corporate HQ Smoke Free

NORTH KINGSTOWN, RI —David Sarlitto, the executive director of Ocean State Job Lot, likes to ride along with the truck drivers carting the company's food donations to area food banks. He happened to hop in the cab recently with one driver who used to smoke but kicked the habit.

It was a timely conversation because Ocean State recently made its North Kingstown headquarters a smoke-free workplace. The company started talking about the change with employees last year, brought in some experts from the American Cancer Society to help with the transition and picked Oct. 1 for the official date.

When the driver and Sarlitto started talking, the driver mentioned something Sarlitto had not noticed. All the Ocean State executives and top management people are non-smokers.

The driver went right down the line and pointed out 15 names from upper management. He'd never seen any of these men with a cigarette.

Given that fact, he could see it was in his best interest to quit smoking.

Sarlitto believes leading by example is part of the reason the whole company embraced the smoke-free policy. People have understood the big picture. Ocean State went smoke free not just because smoking costs the company money in health expenses, although that's true, too. The bottom line is, smoking's just not good for people, he said.

Of course, quitting isn't easy.

"Sure, there was some opposition," said Bob Selle, the chief human resources officer. But people weren't hostile.

"We're a big employer," he said but the company also operates like a family. "We have a great open door policy." So employees could talk over the change.

Most of the questions centered around why go after smoking and why not obesity, he said. In fact, the company is doing something about healthy eating, too, he said, but the smoking is without question the biggest health cost driver.

Selle couldn't say how many associates were smokers.

"I would see groups go out and smoke," he said. "But we never tried to put a number on it. I would call that discrimination." The plan was always to deal with the smoking through education.

"Everything is data now," he said. United Health goes over aggregate numbers quarterly; and although the individual names are never part of the discussion, the company receives aggregate numbers about the reasons people are going to the doctor and the type of health complaints. Smoking's at the bottom of most health problems, he said.

In the past, the employees who smoked had voluntarily notified the company and agreed to pay a surcharge to be covered on the health plan, he said, but helping everyone kick the habit is ultimately better.

Selle called in the American Cancer Society to organize lunches with Powerpoint presentations about smoking.

Gretta Jacobs, of the American Cancer Society, worked with Ocean State Job Lot on the "Learn at Lunch" programs.

"The employees seemed to really like that," she said. "We go into companies and have an entire tobacco policy planner."

Jacobs said although smoking has declined since 1965 when 42 percent of Americans were lighting up (compared to 15.1 percent today) some 40 million still smoke. But almost all -- 70 percent -- say they want to quit.

For Elaine Gagnon, who works at Ocean State, this anti-smoking campaign helped her finally give up cigarettes.

“When I was 4 years old, my father was smoking in the parlor. I asked him for a puff. He gave it to me," she said. "By the time I was 7, my father would throw out his cigarette as we walked into the house, I would run into the yard and finish it. I became fully addicted at 14,”

She wrote a thank-you letter to the American Cancer Society; and in it, she said, "I have started and stopped so many times, I can't count. I want to thank the women from the American Cancer Society for coming to talk to us about the dangers of smoking. It provided the point of view I needed to beat the last argument the addict in me was using to hook me back into smoking.”

"Really good things have happened," Selle said, since the American Cancer Society visited Ocean State. Instead of going out to smoke on their breaks, people have started walking clubs. Some even climb the stairwells at lunch and on breaks,

As for penalties for smoking on campus, Selle said, Ocean State didn't develop any.

"We didn't think we'd need any," he said.

Ocean State Job Lot is providing free patches and Nicorette to associates to help them quit, according to Ellen Schulte at the American Cancer Society. "The company acknowledges that smokers now have to change their lifestyles and many are still working on that, but overall they have embraced the concept of health and well-being.”