Think about it! It’s three a.m. and your $32,000 snow groomer is being jockeyed down the slopes by a beer-drinking cowboy. The Hedco froze up because the snowmaker fellow passed out. Or a sharp lawyer proves to the jury your top lift loader had his coffee jug spiked, so you loose the case on the unloading area accident.
If these situations don’t happen at your ski area, you’re just lucky.
In the U.S. today there are perhaps over 15 million alcoholics—men, women and children with recurring problems caused by drug alcohol misuse. Studies show about one out of every 10 of YOUR employees is suffering from this disease. Chemically dependent people are 50 per cent as effective as healthy workers. They create 80 per cent of your medical claims, 70 per cent of your accidents, 50 per cent of your absenteeism, most labor/management grievances, plus shoddy work and even sabotage.
Ever said, “He or she is the best worker I have—when he’s here?” Alcohol often takes its toll, for little-known reasons, on people who are most sensitive and intelligent—your best workers. Only 3 per cent are skid row bums; 45 per cent of all alcoholics are professional/managerial personnel, the so-called “hidden alcoholics” who go to work each day and have families.
Human suffering aside, alcoholism is costing you big money. It’s the 25 billion dollar hangover we collectively have each year. So what can be done?
Alcoholism is a very complex illness, but it is being successfully dealt with by many of today’s leading businesses. An enlightened approach starts with educating yourself to the facts about drug alcohol and the illness. A written policy statement should be distributed which would state the company’s stand that alcoholism/drug dependency is a treatable illness and that management will stand in an anonymous manner behind employees who seek help. By contacting your state governor’s office you can usually find specialized people and good information which will aid in setting up an enlightened approach for your company.
With a basic awareness, you and your staff supervisors should focus more closely on job performances. Rather than look for signs of drinking, which are usually cleverly masked, the supervisors stick to measuring work performance. Any troubles should be documented, with records that can be pulled out and placed before the worker in question with the slippage in work output talked about in a specific, non-judgmental fashion.
The supervisor thus avoids being a alcoholic detective; rather he just carries out his regular duties of watching work performance. When a pattern emerges the boss then confronts the worker with “Fred, I don’t know what is troubling you, but your work is suffering. I want you to see Mr. Jones, a counselor who can help you. This is most serious, Fred. You’re a good man, but we’ll have to let you go if you don’t follow Mr. Jones’ advice.” These are heavy words, and difficult for the boss, especially if the employee is a long-time friend. But to do otherwise and deny the problem is to play a key part in signing the man’s death warrant.
Through this constructive coercion the employer has initiated the road to recovery from alcoholism, today’s least treated, treatable disease. For over ten years now some enlightened business men have being seeing a 77 per cent rate of successful rehabilitation. This ratio jumps to 95 per cent when the people close to the drinker seek help too, for alcoholism is a family illness.
It should be realized an alcoholic is suffering from a disease of denial and self-delusion. The drug often sedates clear thinking, and defense mechanisms build as the progression unfolds. Countless lives now literally dissolve because people around the alcoholic are immobilized by ignorance, denial and the social stigma. Like an unconscious bleeding victim in a car accident, an alcoholic seldom walks to treatment by himself. Rather the bystanders have to initiate this process of first aid through intervention.
A recovered alcoholic is a beautiful sight, especially when you know you played an important part in saving his or her life. A recovering alcoholic is a very grateful and loyal employee. I’ve got several on my payroll and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
The ski industry is a service industry. Labor costs have just one directin — upward. This trend though can be flattened greatly if you come to terms with the very difficult task of facing the alcoholics on your payroll and dealing with these “hidden” costs. To do so is good enlightened business sense.
Mike Beebe, owner/manager of Temple Mt. Ski Area in Peterborough, NH, spends some of his free time as President of the Conval Council on Alcoholism, which is a layman’s approach to dealing with awareness, intervention and treatment of chemical dependency. Beebe is also Director of Project Discovery, a unique treatment approach designed for twelve male and female alcoholics age 14 through 17. He also sponsors an Alateen group for the teen-age children of alcoholic parents.
