Smoking policies, drugs and alcohol abuse

Discipline, grievance and dismissal procedures

If an employee has a problem with drugs or alcohol abuse your first step should be to provide support or to help them find appropriate specialist support services.

But being supportive isn't always enough. You have a clear responsibility to protect your employees' health and safety.

If an employee's behaviour could place themselves or others at risk you have a duty to intervene. You need to set rules and make sure they're upheld.

Sometimes the need for disciplinary action is clear. For example, the law doesn't allow you to let employees take illegal drugs at work.

Similarly drinking and driving at work is a clear case of misconduct requiring significant consequences.

In other cases, it can be more difficult to decide where to draw the line between offering support and taking disciplinary action. Often, a judgement will be required.

If you provide repeated help and support but an employee's substance abuse continues to cause problems at work, your business is likely to suffer if you don't take action.

Providing clear guidelines

You must deal with employees in accordance with the terms and conditions of their employment and with your written policies on smoking, alcohol and drug abuse.

Everyone should be clear both what the rules are and what the consequences of breaking them are.

Your business should have a clear disciplinary procedure for dealing with cases of misconduct. You should also have a grievance procedure in place to give employees an opportunity to complain formally if they believe they've been treated unfairly. 

For more information, see our guides on handling discipline and grievance issues and dismissal. You can download a code of practice on discipline and grievance procedures from the Acas website (PDF).

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Define policies on smoking, drugs and alcohol abuse
• Smoking policies
• Dealing with alcohol abuse
• Dealing with drug abuse
• Manage stress effectively
• Counselling and support
• Checklist: what your smoking, drug and alcohol abuse policies should cover
• Discipline, grievance and dismissal procedures