Effects of Employee Drinking

Alcohol-related job performance problems are caused not only by on-the-job drinking but also by heavy drinking outside of work (15,19). Ames and colleagues (15) found a positive relationship between the frequency of being "hungover" at work and the frequency of feeling sick at work, sleeping on the job, and having problems with job tasks or co-workers. The hangover effect was demonstrated among pilots whose performance was tested in flight simulators. Yesavage and Leirer (20) found evidence of impairment 14 hours after pilots reached blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) of between 0.10 percent and 0.12 percent. Morrow and colleagues (21) found that pilots were still significantly impaired 8 hours after reaching a BAC of 0.10 percent. Drinking at work, problem drinking, and frequency of getting "drunk" in the past 30 days were positively associated with frequency of absenteeism, arriving late to work or leaving early, doing poor work, doing less work, and arguing with co-workers (19).