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Picture this, a summer Friday, Office BBQ. Nice pub round the corner. Beer flowing, decent wine. Spirits arrive at six, as they always do. Someone produces a bottle of tequila that was definitely not in the budget. Everyone's having a great time. Until they're not. One of your team has had too much, too quickly. Maybe they're tired. Maybe they hadn't eaten. Maybe, and this is the bit you didn't know. They have a relationship with alcohol that's complicated. Things go a bit messy. There's a public row with a colleague.

The Friday Night HR Nightmare

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Some of it is shouted in front of clients you'd invited. There's an incident in a taxi later that you only hear about on Monday morning, secondhand, in a worried voice. Tuesday, you find out a complaint is being raised, not about the row. About something else that happened that's been described to you only in fragments. Tuesday afternoon, you ring me. You start with, Kate, what's our policy on this? You then say, I don't think we have one, do we? You don't, most SMEs don't. Until something happens, then it turns out you're handling sensitive disclosures, complaints, possible misconduct, possible health issues, and possible safeguarding concerns without a single piece of paper to anchor any of it. Today, on Alcohol Awareness Week, we are talking about the policy gap most small businesses don't know they have until they really, really do. And three conversations. Managers dread but can't avoid. The Welcome to the Hive intro. Hey there, welcome back to Buzzing About HR, the podcast for small business owners and HR professionals who want straight talking plain English advice. I'm Kate, your host, HR Queen Bee, and someone who has been the Tuesday morning phone call for more than one panicked owner after a Friday night incident. With me, as ever, completely teetotal, is Hazel, our well-being officer. Her relationship with alcohol

Why No Policy Is A Position

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is straightforward. She has none. She has, however, eaten a piece of cheese that fell off the table during last week's meeting and remains very pleased with herself about this. This week is Alcohol Awareness Week, run by Alcohol Change UK. It's a good moment for small businesses to look at something most of them have never properly looked at alcohol at work. Quick note before we start. This episode is not about telling you that alcohol is bad and your work events are wrong. It is about acknowledging that alcohol is part of life, including work life, and that no policy is not a neutral position. No policy is a position that leaves you exposed when something goes wrong and unable to support staff who are quietly struggling. This is one of those episodes where the policy isn't the point. The conversation underneath the policy is kettle on, let's go. The buzz. What an alcohol policy actually covers. Quick reset. A workplace alcohol policy isn't about banning the Christmas party. It's about being clear in advance about three things. One, alcohol at work and at work events. What is the position on alcohol during the working day? At lunches, at external client meetings, at work-organised socials, at industry events you're attending in your work capacity? Most SMEs have an unspoken position, usually not at lunch on a normal day, fine in the evenings if it's social. That unspoken position

What A Workplace Alcohol Policy Covers

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is fine until it's tested. 2. Alcohol affecting work performance. What happens if someone arrives smelling of last night's drinks? What happens if someone's performance has been declining and you suspect alcohol is part of the picture? What happens if a colleague raises concerns about another employee? Most SMEs have no agreed approach. Each manager handles it their own way. Some are sympathetic, some are punitive, some pretend they didn't notice. That inconsistency is the dangerous bit. 3. Support and disclosure. If an employee comes to you and says, I have a problem with alcohol, what do you do? Most owners freeze. They either overreact, jumping straight to formal action, or underreact, saying nothing and not following up. A good policy makes the supportive response the default. Time off, signposting, occupational health, EAP, specific support. These can all be offered without putting the employee through formal misconduct processes. A fit-for-purpose alcohol policy is one or two pages. It is clear. It is humane. It is consistent. It is not, and this matters, the same as a drugs policy. Conflating the two is one of the things that goes wrong with off-the-shelf templates. The hive check, the numbers, the numbers briefly. A 2025 alcohol change. UK report estimated that alcohol-related issues cost UK employers around £7.3 billion per year in lost productivity, absenteeism, and presenteism. 20% of UK employees report drinking at a level that is potentially harmful by NHS guidance. Around 35% of those say their drinking has at some point affected their work, even if they haven't told anyone. In semi settings, 72% of small businesses surveyed had no written alcohol policy. 68%

The Numbers That Change Minds

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of managers said they had not had any training on how to handle alcohol-related concerns. 41% of those who'd had to manage an incident in the last two years said they had made it up as they went along. That last figure is the one that costs businesses dearly. The sting, why this gets avoided. Three reasons. One, discomfort. Alcohol is personal. Many of us have a complicated relationship with it. Many of us have family members who have had problems. Talking about it at work feels invasive, so managers don't bring it up. Until they have to.

Why Managers Avoid The Topic

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3. Culture. In some industries, sales, hospitality, agency work, construction, drinking is part of the culture. That doesn't make it inappropriate. But it does make it harder to set boundaries around, because suddenly naming the issue feels like attacking the culture. The result is silence until something forces a response. The waggle dance. The three conversations. Right. The three conversations managers dread but can't avoid. Conversation one, the proactive policy chat. Once you have a policy, you need to introduce it, not bury it. A short team meeting. We've put together an alcohol policy. Here's what it says. Here's why we have it. We're not banning anything. We're being clear. That conversation, 10 minutes, sets the foundation for every harder conversation that comes later. Skip it, and the first time the policy comes

Three Conversations You Need Ready

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out is when someone is in trouble, which feels punitive and ambushing. Conversation 2. The concerned conversation. You've noticed something. A pattern. Performance has dipped. Punctuality has slipped. There have been a couple of suspicious mornings. You don't have proof. You have a gut feeling. The conversation goes, I want to check in. I've noticed in the last few weeks specific examples. I might be reading this wrong. I just want to ask if everything's okay and whether anything is making work harder right now. You do not say, are you drinking too much? You do not interrogate. You open the door. If they want to disclose, they have an opening. If they don't, you've still made it clear you've noticed and you care. Either way, you've handled it without prejudice or assumption. Conversation three. The disclosure conversation. An employee says, I have a problem with alcohol, or words to that effect. Your reaction in the first 30 seconds matters more than anything else. What you do, thank them for telling you, listen, do not panic, do not jump straight to consequences, ask what support they'd find helpful and book a follow-up. What you don't do, say, right, well, that's a disciplinary matter, or anything that closes the door immediately. A disclosure of a struggle is not by itself a misconduct issue. It might lead to one if there are work-related incidents, but those are separate. A disclosure on its own is a request for support. Treat it that way. Then, privately, calmly, get advice from an HR consultant, from your EAP, from Occupational Health. Don't try to handle it solo. The swarm. Mythbuster parade. Myth one. Alcohol policies are only for safety critical industries. Wrong. Every business benefits from clarity. Office-based, retail, professional services, hospitality, all of them. Safety critical industries have additional requirements. Everyone else still benefits from a clear baseline policy. Myth two. Having a policy means I have to test people. No, policies don't require testing. Testing is a specific, separate, regulated thing that requires consent, fairness,

Myths That Keep SMEs Stuck

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and usually safety critical justification. A policy is about expectations, support and process, not random tests. Myth three. If I don't ask, I won't have to deal with it. Wrong. You will deal with it. The only question is whether you deal with it before something goes wrong or after. Before is much, much cheaper. Myth four. Alcohol issues are always misconduct. Wrong. They might be. They might be a health issue. They might be both. Sorting this out requires care, advice and process. Defaulting to misconduct is fast and often legally wrong. The honeycomb. Your quick action list. Seven actions. One, write a one-page alcohol policy this month. Use the templates from ACAS or Alcohol Change UK as a starting point. 2. Separate it from your drugs policy. They are related but not the same. 3. Introduce it to the team in a short meeting. Don't bury it in the handbook. 4. Train your managers, even informally, on the three conversations. 5. Make sure your EAP, occupational health, or local support resources are signposted clearly. 6. For any

Seven Actions To Do This Month

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work events, agree in advance what the alcohol position is and brief managers on it. 7. Review your sickness and disciplinary policies for any unintended consequences with alcohol-related absences or incidents. Flying the hive, close. Right, before I go, most small business owners do not want to be heavy handed about alcohol. That is correct. You shouldn't be. But the absence of policy is not neutrality. It is the position that says when something goes wrong, we'll work it out then. And that always goes worse than the version where you'd thought it through. A one-page policy. A short team conversation. Three scripts in your back pocket. That's the whole job. Most of you will never need this episode again. Some of you will. Either way, the prep

Practical Close And Support Signposting

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is the same. Take 30 minutes this week, open a blank document, write the headings. Fill them in over the next fortnight. Done. If this episode helped, share it with another small business owner, especially the one whose Christmas party makes everyone slightly nervous. Find me at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk or email buzz at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you or someone you know is struggling with alcohol, drinkline is open 9am to 8pm weekdays, 11am to 4pm weekends, on 03 00123 1110. AA Alcoholics Anonymous runs support groups across the UK and online. Both are confidential and free. Until next time, keep buzzing and take care of your people. Kettle on, standards up.