Work-related risk factors associated with alcohol abuse

Alcohol Health & Research World, Spring, 1992 by Harrison M. Trice

The workplace is probably unexcelled in its potential for setting drinking norms in American culture today. However, the workplace also contains significant risk factors for encouraging problem drinking. The influence of the workplace must be taken into account in any attempt to treat or prevent alcohol-related problems.

The relationship between alcohol use and the workplace is paradoxical. On the one hand, the workplace is a potent locale for intervention in problem drinking (Trice and Beyer 1984; Walsh et al. 1991); further, the workplace is probably unexcelled in its potential for setting norms to guide drinking behavior in American culture (Trice and Sonnenstuhl 1990). On the other hand, the workplace contains significant risk factors for the development of problem drinking--the very disorder it could confront and manage (Straus 1976; Herold and Conlon 1981). Although the motivational potential of the workplace has long been recognized, its potential for encouraging problem drinking has only lately received sustained attention.

Risks, in the context of this article, are probabilities that a person subjected to certain workplace experiences will manifest alcohol-related problems. This article briefly describes the nature of work-related risk factors, concentrating on those internal to work organizations. It also reviews risks generated outside workplaces and imported into them, where they aggravate the internal risks.

A multitude of risk factors have been significantly associated with problem drinking and alcoholism. Until recently, however, work-related factors have not been recognized among them. Risks not generated in workplaces include genetic factors, personality variables, certain features of family dynamics, lower social class membership, and the general availability of alcohol. Persons exposed to these risk factors are at higher risk than those not so exposed. However, there is little compelling evidence that any one of these factors taken separately causes problem drinking or alcoholism. Apparently, alcohol problems are caused by some yet-to-be explored complex interactions of risk factors rather than any particular one. When the factors mentioned above combine with work-related factors, risks may be exacerbated, and alcohol abuse may result.

The workplace is preeminent in current American culture. As family, community, religion, and neighborhood have waned in influence, the workplace has supplanted them. The U.S. Department of Labor (1987) reports that Americans spend more time at work than they do with their families. One careful study concluded that there has been a sharp reversal of previous declines in hours worked. This constitutes a shrinkage of leisure (Schor 1991), increasing the proportional influence of work time in our lives. It is the thesis of this article that sufficient evidence has accumulated to include work-related factors in all explanations of alcohol problems.

Two basic types of risk factors for alcohol problems can occur in the workplace. Internal risk factors are those risks that, in varying degrees, are amenable to change by the work organization (Pfeffer and Salanik 1978; see Table 1). For example, managers have discretion over the role of alcohol in company affairs, ranging from its place in conducting business transactions to the company Christmas party. In addition, work roles with little or no supervision, and those characterized by high mobility, are associated with increased rates of alcohol abuse. Since these roles are arranged under the discretion of management, they are considered internal risks.

External risks reside in the organization's environment (Fillmore 1991; Trice and Sonnenstuhl 1990; see Table 2). These risk factors are less amenable to change by the work organization than are internal risks. For example, if the availability of alcohol in the environment increases and a rise in general income also occurs, these risks may be reflected in higher rates of alcohol abuse within the workplace. The work organization would have relatively little control over these phenomena. Similarly, hostile takeovers of companies can bring about an enormous amount of workplace stress in the acquired firm--a risk factor over which the acquired firm has little authority.

INTERNAL RISK FACTORS

Alienation and De-skilling

Some workplaces produce strong feelings of alienation among workers, leading to a sense of powerlessness, which, in turn, is related to drinking problems (Parker and Farmer 1988, 1990). An example is the alienation produced among highly skilled employees by the threat of de-skilling. In de-skilling, tasks requiring a high degree of skill are broken into less demanding subtasks and distributed among less skilled workers or performed by computers. Mechanization and technological change have totally eliminated some skilled tasks.

For many printers, railroad engineers, machinists, social workers, air traffic controllers, brokers, longshoremen, teachers, and clerical white-collar workers, de-skilling has been a chilling fact of life. Sometimes de-skilling is a long, gradual process. Printers, for example--once regarded as the premier skilled occupational culture--have been systematically de-skilled over the past two decades by managerial pressures to computerize typesetting (Trice in press). On the other hand, de-skilling can be swift and decisive. Prior to 1981, air traffic controllers were highly trained technicians. In response to a 1981 strike, the Federal Aviation Administration instituted computer technology that centrally managed approximately 80 percent of air traffic loads with less than 50 percent of the prestrike force of air traffic controllers.