The US Experience
A recent pilot study by the US Department of Defence suggests that ‘taking the BreathScan tube’ has led to verifiable changes in its workforce’s attitudes toward alcohol. Over five years it has significantly reduced the number of alcohol-related incidents in the armed forces.
The military establishment isn’t the obvious candidate to lead a workplace revolution. But as a global organisation with a workforce running into millions, they, like businesses, have increasingly struggled with alcohol-related issues.
In 2005, American Journal of Medicine research found that excessive alcohol use was common among military personnel and that this had direct, significant health and social consequences. This prompted the US secretary of State for the Navy to set up a five-year pilot programme to establish whether using disposable breath analysers could measurably change behaviour, reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related incidents.
During the study, military personnel in over 50 locations around the world used over 400,000 FDA-cleared BreathScan® tube Breath Alcohol Indicators and took part in specific protocol and awareness programmes.
The programme was successful. Findings released in 2009 showed a significant reduction in alcohol-related incidents from Command down to Unit level. The final report concluded that the device was effective when used together with well-defined campaigns, alcohol education and policies on responsible alcohol use.
Some may argue that the programme was successful because it took place in a disciplined environment like the military. But the pilot was designed to encourage and educate, not to catch and punish. Service families and civilian contractors alike took part.
Analysis of the reasons for the programme achieving such success suggests that a precise and powerful confluence of major psychological theories underpinned the behaviour change. It is the specific combination of these factors which may well hold the key to changing attitudes and behaviour toward alcohol consumption.
A review of the US programme by Dr Robert Owen, an expert in Group Psychology at Brunel University, sheds more light on the psychological explanation. He suggests that ‘group cohesion’ is important to members of all groups, particularly work and social groups. This is particularly true when team effort is vital and when faced with potentially dangerous situations. This becomes even more important when individuals are aware that their job, their safety or those around them are on the line or if they feel their life or something of value could be withdrawn.
The role of the breathalyser assists their positive feelings like a talisman, or a prompt for good. Of course, this is best used within a supportive programme. By repeating the process both in a work and social environment, it progressively reinforces psychological change, changing individual behaviour.
The approach could work for organisations and businesses facing similar challenges well beyond the disciplined constraints of the military.
For one employer, improve operating equipment safety may be the main reason for using the programme. Another may use it to reduce absences. The programme lends itself readily to refinements. For example, including incentive and reward programmes in the protocol could encourage increased take up among different target audiences.
The BreathScan programme offers employers a versatile, cost effective tool which will encourage and effect positive changes in their employee’s attitudes to alcohol. Using the programme will improve efficiency and reduce costs. Businesses in the UK are suffering the very real negative consequences of society’s attitudes to alcohol. Governing boards are increasingly being encouraged to meet the spirit as well as the letter of the corporate governance code. BreathScan can empower organisations to make a verifiable and practical difference.
