A recent study carried out on different groups of General Electric employees throughout the United States promised, to grant good results, against smoking.
These employees were offered 750 to stop smoking for a minimum of six months, and this incentive proved to be extremely effective, for it was found that there was a three-fold added chance that people would actually give up.
General Motors intents to launch another similar anti-smoking campaign next year, for they estimate that in the long term this will prove financially beneficial for the company.
Each year the company spends around 50m in additional costs on employees who smoke, due to sick leave involving smoker-relative complaints.
They are persuaded that from here to five years they will have improved both productivity and sick leave absences and that it will pay back what the company spends each year to make up for these losses.
Past campaigns have proved to be unsuccessful, as the incentives were too low. For the anti-smoke programme to work, the returns must be enticing.
In addition, there are stronger chances for people to stop smoking completely once they have passed the six-month peak.
