British Drinking Culture – The Elephant in the Wellbeing Room
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Is Drinking No Longer an In-crowd Kind of Thing? Join Janet Hadley and Darren A. Smith in an all-new podcast episode on the British drinking culture. Hear why the British drinking culture has changed in the 21st century and its impact on how leaders encourage inclusivity in the workplace. Learn other cool things like the origin of beer and statistics on the leading cause of absenteeism and fights in the workplace. You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to S***s and Giggles with HR. We are with the lovely Janet Hadley. How are you? Janet Hadley: I'm very well, thank you. Darren A. Smith: We've entitled this podcast or video if you watch it by video — this was Janet's idea — the Elephant in the well-being room. Is that right? Janet Hadley: That's correct. Okay. Darren A. Smith: I'm intrigued and I'm going to ask you more about that. But firstly, before we move on, why should we talk to you about drinking culture? Because that's what I know our topic's about. Janet Hadley: So the reason why you should talk to me about drinking culture is because I am on a mission to create a drink-safe workspace without killing the boss and that is what we do here at Choose Sunrise. I guess what brought me here is my own personal experience. I've worked in large corporations since all my jobs apart from my pay ground have been in large corporations basically. Darren A. Smith: Right. Janet Hadley: I've always been a big drinker. Those two things go very nicely together actually as it turns out. So I was a big drinker at school actually, from the age of 14. A big drinker through sixth form, a big drinker through university. I thought, do you know what? I'm going to have to calm this down a bit when I get my first proper job. I was wrong.

I had to dial it up a bit because when I joined the trading floor of a large supermarket whose head office is based in Leeds, I was quite shocked actually. It was such a boozy culture. So it suited me down to the ground at the time. We would be out from 4:00 PM till 4:00 AM on a Friday. Darren A. Smith: Oh. That's heavy. Janet Hadley: It's probably heavy, isn't it? I never saw anything wrong with it. It was almost a culture where you had to be part of that in-crowd in order to be considered for promotion. Darren A. Smith: Right. Okay. Janet Hadley: I do remember there being a couple of pregnant, well, not pregnant women. Well, there were pregnant women or people who were recently back from maternity leave who I feel so guilty for now knowing I was in this. But they weren't part of the in-crowd. They weren't ever out in the pub with us, and they were passed up for promotion.

There was a real culture of, well, they're only part-time and they're not really serious about their careers. It's a horrible toxic culture actually for someone to work in who has a young child. I actually do feel incredibly guilty now looking back on it and thinking about how I was part of that. Actually, I mean, fast forward to a couple of years ago when I decided to stop drinking, which I've obviously missed out on. It's a huge amount of story.

I really only saw for the first time how much the drinking culture in the workplace had influenced me. I would never say it was my employer's fault that I developed a problem with my drinking. But it certainly didn’t hurt. If you wanted to create a culture where someone would develop a drinking problem, that would be it.

Many people develop drinking problems due to the drinking culture in the workplace

  Darren A. Smith: Okay. So there's a hell of a story there from heavy drinking. Now, you haven't had a drink for two years. Janet Hadley: Two and a half years. Nearly three. Darren A. Smith: Okay. You were by no means an alcoholic. You were just part of the drinking culture. Janet Hadley: Well, this is a very interesting question because there is no formal definition of an alcoholic. So I don't really use the term alcoholic.