SMOKERS HURT IN JOB REVIEWS

SACRAMENTO -- Employees who smoke at work are likely to get short shrift of
job performance reviews -- even when the evaluator is a fellow smoker.

That's the conclusion of G. Ronald Gilbert, a professor of manage ment at
Florida International University, who has conducted four studies on the
topic involving thousands of military and civilian workers and supervisors.

Results from Gilbert's first study, conducted at an Air Force base in
California and a naval facility in Washington, D.C., are scheduled to be
published in the September issue of Public Personnel Management Journal.

His studies show smokers on average received slightly lower marks than
nonsmoking employees on five key performance measures: technical
competence, motivation, tendency to speak up, forming partnerships and
sense of humor.

Cigarette smokers received even worse marks on four additional areas:
dependability, working relationship with others, sense of professionalism
and overall job performance.

Gilbert attributes the disparate treatment to a social stigma against
cigarette smokers that he calls "smokerism."

"No other group of workers would be told to go outside and congregate where
everyone who walks by can see them," he said in an interview.

And some employment attorneys say they expect to see a new brand of
lawsuits by smokers claiming discrimination.

"It takes awhile for resentment to build up, for a smoker to realize
they're being treated differently," said Jeff Tanenbaum, a San Francisco
management attorney who said he receives several calls a week from
employers seeking advice on how to handle com- plaints from smokers
alleging harassment or discrimination. "Absolutely, this will be a new area
of litigation."

The way to avoid such suits, Tanenbaum said, is to accommodate smokers
without breaking existing laws meant to protect nonsmokers.

Mostly that means providing a comfortable outdoor area where smokers can
huddle without being pelted by rain or snow. It also means training
managers to be aware of their biases -- expressed by everything from a cold
shoulder to outright harassment.

Gilbert recommends more companies create formal programs to help smokers
drop the habit, much the way firms have offered assistance to workers with
drug and alcohol addictions.

"We've mostly left it up to smokers to help themselves," he said.

Anna Rodriguez, a test engineer, at Hewlett-Packard Co., in Roseville who
smokes, said she has never felt her habit was held against her.

"But then, again, my smoking has never affected my performance," she said.

Still, the escalating societal bias against smokers affects Rodriguez, who
estimates she takes about three breaks a day at work for a Merit Ultra
Light indulgence.

"There's a growing group of people who totally disapprove of smoking," she
said. "Its not particular to work, either. It's everywhere in the general
public because of all the (anti-tobacco) advertisement bringing it to our
attention all the time."

Since 1995, when the state ban on workplace smoking took effect, the
California Department of Health Services has spent $46 million to promote
its anti-smoking message.