Podcast Transcript - Episode 0017 - A HR Expert's Perspective with Martyn Potter

Welcome to the professional drinkers podcast brought to you by choosesunrise.co.uk. I'm Janet Hadley and this is for you if you're an HR professional, a business owner or a leader who'd like to explore the drinking culture in your workplace. I'll bring you lived experience stories, expert views and tips for creating an alcohol safe workplace without killing the buzz.

Hello and welcome back. Great to have you back listening to the podcast as we head into October. Day six of October, day six of October, in fact. So if you're doing Sober October, you could very well be heading into your first Friday, Saturday night weekend without the booze for I don't know how long, but for me, I used to try and do this Sober October and Dry January. I never quite managed to get through to the end of the month. It wasn't until I made the decision to stop for longer that I managed to do it. I don't really know exactly why. I think there's a number of factors. I think the time was right. I was finally ready to make that decision. I had some support and I had some help and I had people around me and I had more reasons to do it because I guess things really had got to a point where I was fed up of being the way that I was, drinking too much, trapped in a cycle.

I tell you what, I have really have not looked back. So if this is your first weekend of going without the alcohol, try and reframe it. So don't say giving up. Never say giving up. You're not giving anything up. Think about what you're gaining. Think about all the wonderful things that you've got to gain from kicking the booze. All of the health benefits, how much better your mental health will get, how much better your sleep will get, your skin, your hair, your sense of self-worth, and your mornings.

And your sleep.

And lots of other things.

I could.

Go on. I really could. And if you want a little bit of inspiration, give me a follow on LinkedIn. Just head to Janet Hadley, and I am posting a video every single day to keep you on track. Also available, if you want to watch again, is another video. I did an event this week with Michelle Smith, who is the founder of the National Grief and bereavement Association. We did a joint webinar on the intricate relationship and the complex relationship between grief and alcohol. We have had an awful lot of interest in this topic, actually. I think it's a really interesting one to put on a workplace wellbeing agenda because both bereavement and alcohol are still considered to be very taboo, and people struggle a little bit to talk about them. It's a really good topic to bring some outsiders in to help with. Also what we do after we deliver a talk like that in the workplace is we provide a safe space for people to come and chat with us and talk through any of the issues that they might be facing and get some confidential advice and support and really just take a little bit of that burden off your line managers.

We also then provide a report. Obviously, it's anonymised, but it gives you some general themes about the types of things that have been discussed in those sessions so that your senior leadership team can get a flavour of the types of challenges that people are having that you might not know about. It is interesting what happens behind closed doors. I mean, any season, my manager knows there's always a story going on in.

The team, isn't there?

It's a really good way of surfacing some of the more taboo topics and giving your senior leadership team a flavour of what's really happening on the ground. We'll be bringing you another live event through LinkedIn later in the year in November. I think we've set the date for, yes, we have the eighth of November at 11:00 AM. We'll be looking at supporting people who've had some loss or grief, and it doesn't necessarily mean a bereavement. It could be a divorce, it could be the loss of a pet, it could be a significant illness, it could be.

An.

Empty nest syndrome. It can be all different kinds of losses. But navigating those losses through the season when it is the season to be jolly, and when everybody is encouraged to basically binge drink, let's face it, it can be a really tough time. So do look out for that event on the eighth of November.

And on.

The similar topic, as we do head into this early season, remember that you can always download our guide to running a sober, inclusive event in the workplace. And if you head over again to my LinkedIn page at the top there, you'll see a link. It says, It think it says something like, 50 ideas for a sober, inclusive event. Give that a download and have a think about how you can potentially create a more inclusive environment for people who choose to drink moderately or to not drink at all, rather than just offering a big boozy do. We're not saying you have to ban alcohol. Nobody wants to ban alcohol. We want to create an environment where everyone can enjoy the works do, whether they're a drinker or not. Also to look out for this week, I have just had an article published in the Safety Management magazine, which is the magazine that the British Safety Council publish. Have a look out for that as well. I'll be sharing that across social media. Today's guest is the wonderful and really experienced and very knowledgeable, Martin Potter. Martin is an HR consultant and he's also a coach. He works with a variety of public, private, and not-for-profit organisations.

The main things that he works on are people and strategic and change management issues. He's also a qualified mediator and a mental health first aider. What a brilliant person to talk to about alcohol in the workplace. Just listening to this conversation again, I just thought, wow, there is so much information in here for anyone who is currently facing into some alcohol issue in the workplace, looking at all the different rules of regulations that you might need to think about and consider, and also anyone who's in the process of putting an alcohol policy together, really thinking through some of the points that need to be in there, making sure it's really robust, getting that cultural order in place before you do the policy. Some brilliant advice in here for anyone who's working on some project like that. So at the start of this interview, there is a little bit of a delay on the line, but bear with, it does disappear and the quality comes through after just a couple of minutes, and it's really worth listening to. So without further ado, I'll give you Martin Potter.

I am delighted to introduce my guest for this week, Martin Potter. Martin Potter is the owner of Martin Potter HR Solutions. So welcome, Martin.

Thank you, Janet. Really looking forward to today's podcast.

Yeah, it's going to be an interesting one, isn't it? Let's start off by asking you to tell everyone a little bit more about the work that you do in your business.

Right. I worked for a number of years in professional services for accountants and business advisors, and then got the opportunity about 15 years ago to drop a day and to start working on my own. I loved it. Then about seven years ago, I got the opportunity to go full-time, self-employed. So self-employed, HR manager, so that's my background, HR. But I also do a lot of coaching and mediation. Typically, I spend most of my day working with owner managers from SME businesses. I'm just helping them with a whole raft of people, issues, and some challenges they come across.

Sounds fascinating. I mean, people are fascinating, aren't they? Let's face it. They really are.

-yeah, I think no two days are the same, really. You can never predict how somebody's going to behave in the workplace. You've got the highs and the lows, the challenge is the lot.

-yeah. Well, that's just it, isn't it? The workplace is just a mirror of daily life, really. I mean, yes, we go there to perhaps put a bit of more of a professional face on and to do our work, but ultimately it is just a reflection of the culture in our general society. There's no difference. And so you get everything in the workplace that you get in life, and it can be very messy sometimes, very messy.

I think if we typically look at the hours we spend at work, we, in most cases, probably spend more hours at work than we do at home. And one of the challenges, of course, is that mix between the work and the life and the balance and things linking in.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, obviously, this podcast is all about alcohol culture in the workplace. So I'm going to steer us off in that direction straight away, if that's okay, and ask you, out of everything that you come across and the work that crosses your desk, how common is it for you to be dealing with situations that have got alcohol somewhere in the story?

Well, I think quite rare, and I think that's due to a few reasons. I think mainly because alcohol related or fueled behaviour is probably not reported or it's probably not recognized by the individual or by their colleagues. So I think there's a lot more alcohol related behaviour challenges that are out there, but I don't think we hear about it. And in my experience, it's probably when it builds into a big issue, a big challenge that there's a big blowout that we hear about it. But I think on a day to day basis, there's a lot we don't hear about.

That is interesting. And do you get asked questions by clients about alcohol in the workplace? Do any of the SMEs that you work with come to you with like, I can imagine, but I won't put words in your mouth, so what questions you get asked?

Well, I had to think about this, and I thought there's probably roundabout seven or eight types of alcohol-related incidents that I come across. If it's okay with you, can I just run through them? I think there's the one where- Yeah, that's good for it. There's the employee who has an underlying alcohol problem. An example would be somebody who, and I can remember this from a few years ago, somebody who appears sober until lunchtime and then goes to the pub at lunchtime and comes back smelling alcohol, sits in the corner. I remember a particular example of if you ever wanted this individual in the meeting, you used to arrange the meetings for the mornings because you knew the afternoon that they wouldn't be in the right state.

That doesn't sound like the best proactive way of tackling it.

Not at all, but it's one of those things. It was almost accepted. I think we've then got the worker with an addiction. I've had examples of workers who have alcohol in their water bottle. You could smell it. You can see their appearance. They put putting alcohol in coffee, the first coffee of the day, or they go out for a smoke break where they don't smoke. There's anecdotal feedback that they're having a drink of whatever. I think certainly the most popular one is work related social events, which is the obvious one where you're there with your work colleagues, there's alcohol around and things sometimes get out of hand. Can I give you a couple of examples? Would that be interesting? Oh, I'd love to hear. I've come across recently. Yeah. Yeah. There's a very recently one where there was a relatively new employee who was a fantastic employee, went out on the Christmas do. They went into town, had too many drinks, nearly got into a fight with just a local punter in the pub. The manager had to step in and separate them. Guy went off in a Hoff downstairs. Manager and a colleague followed.

Guy got into another fight. Manager had to separate them again, and the employee then pushed the work colleague. So serious issues there. That leads to consequences. I think a more subtle one is, and I remember a very good manager of mine saying that they always remain sober at the Christmas do, because that was when their colleagues got Dutch courage. They had a couple of beers and sidele up to the boss.

And.

Told the boss what they really thought about the boss, the company, their colleagues. And of course, that's a real tricky one. So I think work social, I certainly think meetings with client-supplied contacts. So trade award ceremony, just a great example of an individual who was a long-serving, really great employee who got so drunk that they jumped on the table and took off the top off. And this was pre-social media, so you can imagine links. So the other one is social media posts, live feeds of social do's, drunk life posts, et cetera. There's a whole issue about reputational damage, but also personal reputation as well. Just the last couple, really, I think there's certainly somebody who's having a challenge with a close family or friends who is maybe have an alcohol problem. They don't have the stress and the pressure on them that they bring into the workplace. I think finally, probably hangovers, post a big night out. Somebody coming in, they've had a load of alcohol, they're not functioning properly, then can't do the job, etc, How do you deal with it? Is it sickness, absency? We'll probably talk later about the right to somebody's privacy, but how does a manager have a conversation about what somebody does in their own time that's having an impact on their work in the workplace?

They're the seven areas, but as I say, it's fairly rare. It's fairly rare.

-yeah, but interesting though, that there's actually such a broad range of issues that might come up that are related to alcohol in the workplace. And correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, there's actually very little in terms of employment law that is given us directives about this. -so from an employment law perspective, there's nothing to prevent people drinking at work if you don't have a policy, for example. So there is not illegal to drink at work. You have to make it a rule in your workplace.

Absolutely, and I think one of the building blocks is to have an alcohol and potentially an alcohol testing policy. Now you've got to be very careful what you put in. I suppose looking a little bit wider at employment law, I had a little think about this, and I suppose the law around alcohol, you've got the under 18 drinking alcohol in public law. You will have people who are employing apprenticeships, people who are coming on placements, etc, who might be under 18. There are sublaws saying that if you're accompanied by an adult, you can drink, but not by beer. There's a whole issue around the age issue, which I think employers have to be aware of. Certainly, driving, DVLA, you've got to notify the DVLA around the driving, the drink driving issue. Certainly, data protection comes in, because if you're going to do alcohol and testing and have records of talks and interviews, you've got to make sure that you actually make sure that data protection laws are covered. You might want to do drug testing, but you have to put that in a policy and then set out your intent and set out how are you going to do it as well.

I think, interestingly, what you talked about is we have the Human Rights Act. This is basically the right for respect for your family and private life. This is a bit of a grey area in terms of how much can a manager ask about somebody's private life as well. However, you've also got to think about if somebody, for example, is operating machinery, do you have a right as an employer to insist that they don't drink 12 hours before they come in to their shift to operate that machinery? There is an impact in terms of work and life, and the overriding thing is health and safety. An employer has a duty of care. A duty of care. Now, that's very broad. They've got a duty of care for the individual and their colleagues. There's a whole raft of stuff, but quite rightly, the actual mention alcohol, what is allowed, what isn't allowed, social work, entertaining, you need to wrap that up in a very robust alcohol and alcohol testing policy.

Yeah, I agree. I think there's a lot of businesses who don't look at this until something has happened, a workplace accident or an incident. Perhaps they've got a colleague, like you say, coming to you with someone who's quite clear they've got some alcohol issue and they just haven't thought about it, and so they haven't got the right policies in place. It's so much easier to prevent issues from arising than it is to sweep up after them, as we all know. What did you say? Like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, something like that. And policies. Absolutely. Policies are great place to start, but policy isn't going to do everything. Anyone can write a policy and leave it to gather dust in a drawer. It has to be implemented. It has to be lived. It has to be trained. It has to be in line with the culture. You can't have a policy that says you can't drink at lunchtime if everyone actually does and there's no consequences for it. So policy definitely isn't the only thing that you need. You need something that's a much broader wrap around, really, to protect yourself, I think, as an employer from encountering these issues.

What's your view, Martin, on what a responsible employer would have in place around alcohol?

Well, I think you touched on a really important issue around culture. Firstly, you've got to think about not instilling this culture of alcohol-focused, internal, external entertainment. It's about a positive relationship with alcohol. And you've got to appreciate that there's a lot of businesses where there is a link between entertaining social events where there's alcohol involved. I think firstly, the priority is you need to train managers. So you need to train managers to watch out for warning signs because it's nipping things in the bud. So typical warning signs, I suppose, would be a change in behaviour, somebody's appearance. Certainly often signs of somebody's appearance degenerates in terms of the clothes they're wearing, the personal hygiene, body language. They may become either very out there, maybe a bit aggressive, or they may actually retreat into themselves completely, missing deadlines, forgetting tasks, avoiding supervisors, bloodshut eyes, et cetera, looking half asleep. So there's something about training managers, and you've got to be very clear in terms of what the purpose of training manager is in. You've got to talk about what is alcoholism. We've got to talk about confidentiality, how to address something in the confidentiality angle, the face to face.

When is the time to talk to HR or talk to an external specialist like occupational health, and how to respond to concerns raised by other people? There is a whole program around trading managers to make them aware of it to hopefully pick up the early signs as well. I think the policy has to talk about offering support. Well, a company has to be clear whether it's going to be supportive of somebody who has an alcohol problem or whether they're not, because there's no point in having a policy unless you actually believe that you're going to help. So you've got to decide whether you're going to support them and how are you going to support the individual. Is this going to be through counselling, time-off, et cetera? You've got... I suppose, I think it's almost like you've got to have a risk assessment of the business. You've got to look at your business and go, Are we entwined with alcohol? I remember working for companies where the directors would have a bureau at the back of their office and they'd had a whole raft of whiskeys on there. You're going, Well, what sign? It used to be a fridge and there used to be a wine cellar.

You're going, Well, if you've been overtly positive about that, but also things like events, are you only just putting on alcohol drinks? Have you got all the alternatives to zero alcohol and alcoholic, et cetera? You're going to do an audit and you might have to change your culture before you start even writing a policy, because if a policy doesn't reflect what happens in reality, it can be seen to be undone. I think certainly alcohol testing is something to think about, and I think certainly support for me is the key and what level that comes up at. I think that's probably what companies need to think about to get some building blocks in place.

Yeah, absolutely. That was like a little advert for everything that we do at Choose Sunrise as well, by the way. What we have-.

Right, there we go.

-is to start- -started. Completely, yeah. We do encourage organisations to start with a cultural audit before policy and just understand how things are. We also provide a service where we can do a confidential survey anonymised that just simply helps the business to understand how many people within their workplace are drinkers and how many are not drinkers, and that one small data point is often quite a big surprise, because it's often up to 40% of people who are non-drinkers in a workplace. So overall, in the UK, there's 20% of people who don't drink as adults. That rises to about 25% with the younger generations, so Gen Z, but—yeah, we did a survey for one client, and it was 40% of people would prefer... To be fair, they may or may not have been drinkers, but it was 40% of people would prefer an alternative to a bottle of wine or champagne as a gift, which was a real surprise, because all they'd ever done was send a bottle of champagne to everyone at Christmas, and that was quite an interesting change in their... What a small shift that is.

To.

Start to change the culture, to change from sending a bottle of champagne to asking people if they prefer something else. And then they made these beautiful gifts that were like a ceramic teapot with some loose leaf teas and just a nice gift to receive still, but not booze. So yeah, I thought that was the best result.

-yeah. And that is the cultural audit, because that may be just something that you do naturally. Somebody's off, fill whatever, you send a bottle of something through to people. And that's about the auditing and keeping the awareness. It's really interesting. I went to an award ceremony recently and it was out of town, so it was parking. I think majority of people turned up in the cars. We were queuing for our drinks and I said, Oh, why are we queuing? The reason we were queuing is they ran out of zero alcohol and beer and drink. I think we queued for half an hour whilst they basically rushed around and got a whole load of zero bets or whatever it was, and they had to have tubs of water and they put them in or whatever. I just thought that's fascinating because what? Because it was great that it was on offer, absolutely great that it was on offer, which was great. However, almost that audit of the thinking of what people will want a glass of wine. Well, no, maybe 80 % of people drove there and they probably don't want a glass of wine. I just thought that was fascinating.

They got it right in terms of having the option, but that percentage shift.

I think a lot of the employers that I've worked with so far have been really surprised at how much interest there is in an alcohol-free event or an alcohol-free alternative gift or, there's this assumption at board level, because most people at board level are of a generation where everyone drinks pretty much, and I'm generalising here, obviously, but generally the board level people are drinkers, and so they've got a bit of a blind spot to it, and it's becoming increasingly an inclusion issue in the workplace, where if the precedent is set that every single workplace event centres around booze, you are always going to have this 20 % of people or more who just don't really want to go and don't make another excuse. But really what they're thinking is I can't be bothered to sit in the pub with these people, watching them get drunk because it's not very much fun. That's me these days. I have to say.

I know, I know. I agree with you. But we spend time to talk about leadership, don't we? You've got managers and directors going on leadership courses, and they say you've got to set the example. And then you come to a social event where a boss might have two or three pints jump in their car and drive home.

Yeah, and.

You're going, Well, you're trying to... There's the conflicting messages here, aren't there? It could be generational, it could be generation, it could be education. But you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

Yeah. And just on that point, is this a good question, this, and I think I know the answer, and the answer is it depends, but what is the line between a workplace event and some private event? So if I'm on a work night out and we start off in the office and we have drinks in the office, I'd assume that that's classed as the workplace, then we go to a pub altogether, and then a few people go to a nightclub.

To where.

Does it stop being a workplace event and start being none of the work's business from an employer's perspective? Or does it ever?

That's a cracker of a question. I'm thinking on my feet here, but the starting point to buy myself a little bit of time is that I'd always suggest you have a work-related social events policy, which is possibly separate from the alcohol. And what that tries to do is it actually sets out the answers to your questions. So it may well say that the Christmas do because it's organised and funded by the company and there are a range of colleagues there, it may well say the Christmas do is the whole evening.

And.

So in a way, that gives a degree of clarity, maybe until you get into your taxi at the end of the night. You can do it for events like that. I think it also should set out things like what you can do and what you can't do. Things like, we haven't talked about drugs, but alcohol and drug policy refers to drugs. It's things like you should not take recreational drugs whilst out on a works too. You should act in a professional manner. You should limit the amount of alcohol, et cetera. The starting point there is to actually have a policy to almost say that what is and what isn't. Back to your original question, it gets quite grey, doesn't it? Because if we get to the point that as soon as we get outside the meter room where there's a couple of free drinks and then we go to the pub, is that still work? Yeah, because the bosses are still there. Then the bosses may say, Right, guys, I'm going home. Off you go. Some go home, others go on to another thing. That's the grey area. I suppose there would be certain precedents if they went on to another venue.

Is the company still paying for alcohol? Is the manager got a budget? Is there a tab behind the bar? Arethey... I don't know. Are they talking about work? That's a little bit gray, really. Really, really tricky. Really tricky in that and I think that comes back to having a real hard think about AD alcohol policy, but also your work-related social policy. I've come across a lot of leaving those now where deliberately employers are having a mix of alcohol, non-alcohol. They're limiting people's intake by having a voucher scheme, for example.

But.

It is a grey area.

It is.

But where it cuts back in, I think if you think of my example of the individual who went to the nightclub and ended up pushing a work colleague, I personally think that because the manager and a work colleague had to interfere and try to split up the individual from fighting, in my mind, that brought it back into a work context because it was still a Christmas do. That individual pushed a work colleague, and that has to be treated under work policy and protocol.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very interesting area, and it's something that, I mean, there's no doubt that people lose their jobs after the work's Christmas do every single year. Someone ends their career at the Christmas do every year, without a doubt. And it's sad, because at the end of the day, what I now know about alcohol and how it works and how it literally switches off your ability to use the decision making part of your brain, I have a lot of sympathy, actually, for people who make terrible decisions when they're drunk. I think we've all probably made a terrible decision when drunk at some point in our lives. It's very relatable. And yet we do have to hold those people to account for that behaviour as if it's happened in the workplace where you would never ever have been as inebriated as that. And I think where you've got companies who haven't taken any precautions. So no alcohol education, no alcohol policy, a free bar, unlimited drinks, they've plied their people with alcohol and then something happens. I personally think that it's a little bit unfair to come down on them like a ton of bricks when things happen.

And yet we do see that happening an awful lot in the workplace. I just encourage employers to really think about it. How much are you costing yourself as well? I've dismissed people in my corporate life. I've dismissed people for behaviour at workplace events who've been amazing, talented individuals who we've lost them from the company because basically the company's put a free bar on, they've lost control, done something that they wouldn't normally do, but then that's been the end of it and it just doesn't seem right.

No, it doesn't. I think the other thing that brings in a social event back into the company is if a work colleague makes a complaint, an informal one, a formal one through the grievance policy. I've had situations where over the last couple of years where we had a complaint through the grievance policy, which on the face of it related to maybe a non-work situation, but the grievance was against a fellow work colleague and the company took the decision to investigate it under the grievance policy. So you've got to look very carefully at your grievance policy. Does that what that covers as well? But you have to take complaints and grievances seriously because as an employer, if you don't, if you ignore them, if you brush them under the carpet, you put yourself at.

Risk as well. Yeah, you do. You do not want to end up in a tribunal over this, do you?

No, not at all. I think things are changing. I can think back 20-odd years where we were actively encouraged to go out and wine and dine people and try to get new business. There was a budget for alcohol, et cetera. Then you came back in the afternoon, you sat in the corner and kept quiet. I think there is a real move away from that now. Number of reasons, budgetary. I think companies are very focused on the budget. I think too, I think lockdown has changed it because we're having this conversation by video. You may have offered me a virtual glass of wine, which I refuse, but we're having this and there's no alcohol involved in this as well. I also think that there's been a massive move away from meeting a contact in the pub to meeting them in a coffee house. The whole coffee things. Most of my meetings are in various coffee houses around the region. Rather than maybe 20 years ago, I might have said, Let's go get a pint at a bunch of times. I think culturally, the company lockdown's made a big difference. Culturally, we're changing. That's just a cultural change.

There is change.

But there's a lot to be done. There is. Yeah, there is change and it's great and it's really good to see because, as I've said before on this podcast, my mom tells me about when she was in a typing pool and she used to smoke at a desk, everybody smoked to the desk, and we couldn't imagine, they couldn't imagine a time when that wouldn't be the case. I think that the beer fridges in the workplace will end up in that category in another 20, 30, 40 years' time where people will go, Can you believe that there used to be a beer fridge in the workplace? That's crazy. Imagine doing that now. I really do. I think it's dated personally. I really do. I think it's not inclusive and it's not responsible, actually.

You're talking about inclusion. We have seen a massive change in our awakening over the last five years in terms of awareness of mental and physical health. There is a far more open culture within employers now of talking about your mental or physical health. And that, of course, will link into drugs and alcohol and opportunities for people to talk about the challenges. Whereas 15, 20 years ago, it was probably a real. You need to mention it. So that inclusion and a link between mental health and disability and the whole EDI agenda. So I think the the landscape we operate into now makes it a lot easier for people, hopefully, to talk about mental health issues, which may be a a side effect of potentially having alcohol.

Problem as well. So that's a positive thing. Yeah, it is. It's very chicken and egg with the mental health and anxiety issues. In my private coaching practice, where I help people to ditch the booze, the number one probably reported side effect of ditching the booze is an improvement in mental health and the reduction in anxiety that people sometimes didn't even realise they had anxiety until it goes away and they go, Oh, I just feel really confident and happy, and I didn't before. I'm like, Yeah, that's what alcohol does, if you use it very regularly. So it is tricky because obviously depression is or can be a protected characteristic. However, being alcohol-dependent isn't yet who can say whether being alcohol-dependent is as a result of depression, or whether depression is a result of being alcohol-dependent, and therefore, is it a protected characteristic? You can get into some real grey areas and debates on this, I think, quite quickly. I'd -Yes, absolutely. -tend to advise people to just think about what is decent human behaviour, regardless of what the law says, and shouldn't we just include everybody? Yes.

Well, I like the idea of the work you're doing in terms of getting a yardstick in terms of those people who drink and who don't drink, but also getting in and giving people the opportunity to maybe open up about some of their concerns around it. Because if we can get that narrative at an early stage and they can talk to people who have, like yourself, who've got experience of maybe going through a cycle, that's so important, rather than holding it onto themselves, keeping it to themselves and things just escalated.

And that's why I set the business up, really, because I held down a good job, raised children, paid the mortgage. There was no way anybody looking from the outside in would think that I had an issue with alcohol. And yet I just kept drinking night after night and promising myself that I wouldn't drink that night. Every morning I'd be like, Oh, it feels so rubbish. I'm not going to drink tonight. And by the time tonight came around, it was like, Oh, it's been such a hard day. I'm just going to have to have a drink. It just went on and I just kept thinking it was my own fault. Like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I control it? Other people can control it. I can't. The thing that stopped me from asking for help was that I was so scared that people would label me as an alcoholic if I asked for help with alcohol, which is really ironic because actually what I was doing was preventing myself from becoming alcohol-dependent by asking for help. Not, Why do we give people this stigma and this label to carry on with the rest of their lives if they've asked for help?

I just fundamentally believe that no one should feel afraid to ask for help with alcohol use. By going into the workplace and talking about this, it is a magical what happens, because people start to say, Me too. I actually feel like that about my drinking. Slowly, slowly, people start to open up and talk to each other, and eventually you end up with a sober, curious movement in the workplace, which is really fun, actually.

Yes.

No, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's great.

There's a real irony there. You talk about stigma, but alcohol features really heavily in British life and culture. It's almost, on one hand, it's almost celebrated.

It is.

Glamourized, I would say. Celebrated. I was speaking to a colleague the other day. I went to the Muniq Beer Festival a few years ago and had an amazing time. Everybody was a massive friend. We were all doing this. I said, That would never happen in the UK because you apply people with alcohol, they would end up with fights everywhere. We almost have a pride in that history. Certainly my concerns is I think I believe from the statistics that over the pandemic, alcohol consumption increased significantly.

It did.

There.

Must be a lot of people at the moment who are hopefully getting back into the hybrid or back to work, come into grips with the changing environment who have underlying challenges around alcohol.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you look at the data around, there's some indicators such as alcohol related deaths is a great one to look at. If you look at the national statistics for that, it has been reducing slowly for years, decades, like down, down, down, and down, and down, and down and down. And then it's got a little tick, a little uptick at the end, which started going up again since the pandemic, which is really sad. And it's quite a steep up as well. And people don't realise because it's so normalised and because everybody else does it, and employers have a role to play in this as well. It's available that the works do, it's available at every event I ever go to. People don't always realise how much they're drinking. I have a friend who works in A&E, and she tells me all the time that she comes across people who've basically ended up being admitted with, and they're diagnosed with liver psoriasis, and they just say things like, I had no idea that I was drinking to dangerous levels. I had no idea. People ask me if I'm anti-alcohol. I'm not anti-alcohol. Well, maybe I am a little bit anti-alcohol, but I'm not anti drinkers.

I'm always on the drinker's side. When I look at people who drink heavily and who've ended up with liver psoriasis by mistake, I just think they're my people. That's just what I was like. But, I don't judge people for drinking. I think that having stopped and looked at it with a fresh pair of eyes, I just think it's so similar to the journey that tobacco has been on, where lots of people smoked and didn't realise the damage that they were doing. And then they were actually told to smoke responsibly, which I didn't know until I started researching it, and that you could smoke a moderate amount and it wouldn't hurt you. That's the message that we have from alcohol at the moment, is just drink moderately and it won't hurt you. I just don't think that that's really true because there are some people who can't drink responsibly, and the message puts the onus on the user. So you're allowed to market and glamourise an addictive carcinogenic substance, and if somebody gets addicted to it or uses too much of it, then that's their own fault because they didn't drink responsibly. I don't buy that.

No. Well, dito gambling responsibly. Oh, just awful.

I just don't know how to get away with it, to be honest. No. Yeah. I'm going to have big alcohol shutting me down soon, aren't I?

I think it's the habit for me. I remember an old mate of mine who didn't particularly like their job. They got home and immediately as soon as they got home, gin and tonic. On the face that you go, Great, chill down, whatever. That was your first gin and tonic. Then that was nice. I'll have another one and then we'll have a glass of wine with a meal and you're thinking, Great, if this helps reduce your stress, gets you forget about things, whatever. The issue, the challenge is the habit form is this addiction. That's it. That's the danger.

It is.

And also- The drinking responsibility, giving the responsibility back to the individual to take responsibility.

Yeah. We are told that alcohol... Most people believe that alcohol relieve stress, and that might be true for the first half an hour, but it will increase your levels of cortisol overall. Your level of stress will come down significantly if you cut out alcohol completely, which is something that nobody ever teaches you.

You're saying that the first drink has that.

Carbon effect? Oh, yeah. No doubt about it.

But ultimately then, cortisol is produced by.

The body. Yeah. What happens when you drink is you'll have that first drink and alcohol is a depressant. So the first impact that it has on you is to literally depress the nerve signals that are going around.

Your brain.

But your body's really clever and it detects that there's this depression coming in and it goes, whoa, everything's slowing down. We're going to have to release a load of cortisol and adrenaline and basically stress hormones to gie back up again because there's this invader. And then that's when you start to feel the drink wear off, is when those adrenaline and cortisol kicking. Then you have another drink and it pushes them down again, so you have another release of your own body's chemicals to counteract it. And then because the alcohol is the invader, the liver has a job then of processing all of the extra stress hormones that are going around your body and all the alcohol, and it prioritises the alcohol because that's foreign and it's not been produced by you. So it processes all of the alcohol and you're left with the stress and adrenaline hormones, and that's why you wake up at 3:00 AM potentially and go.

Oh, I.

Can't get back to sleep because they're keeping you awake. You've taken all the depressants away and you're left with all the stimulants, and that is what anxiety is. If you've ever woken up with an overwhelming sense of needing to apologise to people, but you're not really sure what for. I certainly did that a few times as a drinker. That's what anxiety is. Is it a stress reliever? It's a very short term solution. You'd be much better off going for a run. Yeah.

Well, I'm a massive advocate of exercise, and one of the things that I've been looking at the last couple of years as a result of lockdown, I'm doing.

Coaching whilst walking. Oh, brilliant.

I had a client of mine who we used to meet up every month, sit opposite the table, have a chat, and then lockdown came. I said, Well, why don't we just meet up for a takeaway coffee and have a walk around. We meet up every month now and we go for a walk. It often involves maybe a pub lunch or afternoon tea or something, and you have two, three hours where you're outside, you're feeling great. You're getting all the oxygen, getting all the positivity there, but also you're able to talk freely as well.

The.

Feedback from that has been fantastic because you're not in a false environment of talking across a desk thing. You're outside and then all nature and we know all about the beneficial impact of nature and trees and birds and whatever.

I love that. I love it. I think that's a great idea. I have to say some of the best conversations I've had with my teenagers have been when we've been on a fairly sizable wall. I think the fact that you're not facing each other and you both look in the same direction helps.

Absolutely, yes. It's almost like... I remember at work, we used to arrange a lot of temp in bowling events. The reason we did temp in was that people weren't sat around a table, eye-opening each other. They had a distraction and they were able to have short snippets of conversation in between bowling. It was brilliant and it's the same with walking because you've got a personal interest in nature and stuff like that. What you can also do, there's a little bit of education as well. Did you see that red kite over there?

Wow.

And suddenly that just takes people away to a different area as well and helps them forget or I suppose compartmentise some of their worries. -interesting. -yeah, big exponents. Yeah, big exponents of the alternative to do physical activity. And you don't need to be running or playing football or going to the gym. I know people, a lot of people don't like that, but all of us can have a walk around the block.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you're right. I've got a couple of dumbbells downstairs and I try and lift those a couple of times over my head while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil and just little things like that. It doesn't have to be like a full-on gym session, does it? Not that I'm saying my arms are really any different from it. I have to say. But you know, hey, might must be doing some good.

I know somebody who works and they sit on the bike whilst they're.

Having zoom.

Conversations and stuff like that. Maybe that's a little bit extreme, but it's using the time as well.

I'm in the middle of writing a document at the moment called 50 alternatives to alcohol to destress your sofa stress awareness months. I might stick with some of these on the... On the list, actually. Yeah, we're great. But yeah, that's what I'm doing at the moment for fun.

Yeah, for fun.

Exactly, yeah. And then.

The final bit.

Well, there's a couple of bits that I just wanted to ask you just to round things off. I have a number of clients at the moment who work in various different industries, including the legal industry and advertising, marketing, PR, and a common theme that they find really difficult in their own journey to sobriety or to reset their relationship with alcohol, is that they feel as though they have to drink because their job depends on it, because they have to entertain clients. And if they have a client who's like a big boozer, who wants to go out and party, the expectation is that they will take that client out, entertain them, and the client's going to call them boring if they're not drinking, it's going to cajole them into drinking. I'm just wondering, like from an employment perspective, like from an HR perspective, is that okay? And how do they push back on that in the right way to their employers?

I think it is not okay, but I see where that pressure comes from because there's a lot of legacy. It's certainly around marketing, sales, entertainment. Absolutely. And I see why people feel that they have to just jump in and have to drink. Just a real interesting side thing. I was listening to a podcast the other day. It was the James A. Caster and the Ed Gamble podcast. They were interviewing Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran was saying, When he's out and about after a gig and he goes to a pub, he's got to be noticed. He feels, though, that he has to be seen to be drinking. The way he gets round with it is he always has a fizzy drink, like a lemonadeade or a fizzy water, because people don't know whether he's got a gin in.

Him, for example.

Or he goes for a beer in a glass, so it looks like it's a beer. Now you've got somebody like that who is feeling under the peer pressure of having to be seen out, having to have that rock and roll lifestyle. Even somebody of that magnitude has the same pressure on you. Going back to what an individual should do is, and this is really tricky, but in theory, they should sit down with their manager and go, Look, I'm uncomfortable with this. I want to entertain. I want to get a new business in, but I feel that I have to maybe make a statement. I have to say to the client, But I need your support. I need your support in this. They don't have to go into reasons, but they almost need the employer support to change a behaviour. I personally come across this a lot, and I suppose it's down to having... If you're your own boss, it's a lot easier. But I have many meetings out and about and I've got clients who often have a couple of pints and they go, What do you want to drink? I just have a fresh orange.

I do that because I've made a rule for myself that I don't drink and drive. For me, being self-employed in the way I do that, and yes, you have the odd whatever, but ultimately the first time you do the thing, often they go, Fine. The next time they say, What do you want to drink? I'll have an orange, and there's no comment. The next time it's just accepted.

It's easier for me, but I think if you're working for an employer, I think you probably need to talk to your manager or your boss and say, I'm well up for meeting this. I'm doing this. However, I would be driving there. I'm not going to drink. I don't do things as a party pooper, but that's the situation and I need you to support me.

Yeah, and it would be very, very difficult for an employer to do anything other than support that person realistically.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You never have to justify your behaviour. It's really unfair to do so. But if I am challenged, and also you don't have to be seen as preaching as well, because your personal stance, etc, If I'm saying, Oh, why are you having a beer or whatever? What I'm saying is I don't think you should have to justify any behaviour to a client in particular, but maybe to give you strength or purpose, you need to maybe have the reason yourself why you.

Don't do something.

I know why I don't drink because I'm driving, and that's my own personal values. I don't want to preach or convert other people to that, but I have a very strong sense of what my values are. I think that helps as well. It helps you.

Doing the pushback. Yeah, it definitely does. And obviously one of the things that I do help the clients with is how to prepare for the situation and what to say. But yeah, that's in the moment, is what I help them with. But from the employment side of things, it's a big, like that's going to take quite a huge seismic cultural shift for them to feel safe at work, which is a real shame, actually, because we all know how much psychological safety improves performance at work.

Absolutely. I think the other thing that we maybe have a degree of control on is the.

Venue where we meet people.

You can take control of the venue. So let's, for example, if you meet in a really nice local coffee shop and a lot of people like their coffees and their teas, etc, or whatever. So you're taking control and so you're actually minimising that angle. For me, I think I often have a meeting in a pub restaurant where there's food involved as well. So it's not a... So it's a different time of day. It's lunchtime, there's food, and therefore there's far less pressure. So maybe moving away from the, Oh, we'll meet you up past 6:00 after work and we're going out for this big night out. Maybe there is to try to move it into a more safe environment that you feel comfortable with. I also think a lot of networking now can be done by video as well, keeping people up to date. But fundamentally, if an employee has a concern about it and feel under pressure, they must talk to the manager and the manager must take what they say on board and speak. And it may well be that there is a client who has this reputation and it may well be that there's someone else in the organisation who is highly willing to take on that big role of the big.

Night out. Exactly.

But no, without being forced into it.

Exactly. But stand by your own personal ethics and morale.

Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's fantastic advice. Thank you, Martin. Just tell everyone where they can find out a little bit more about the work that you do.

I've got my LinkedIn profile, which is probably the best angle to get hold of me. It's got loads of testimonials, a little bit of LinkedIn activity, and there's also the website. But I would say probably LinkedIn is the first point of call. Drop us a line. I'm always happy to just have a chat face to face, which is my preferred or certainly video.

Whatever is easiest. And it's Martin with a Y. M-a-t-y-n. It's Martin with a Y-It's Martin with a Y-It's Martin with a Y-It's Martin with a Y-It's Martin with a Y-It is.

It is. It is M-A-R-T-Y-N. So it's Martin Potter. Potter as in Harry. So it's Martin.

Potter, H. R. S. S. S. Fantastic. And my final question, which if you've done your homework, you will have an answer for, as you see. So tell me, please, what is your favourite book and why?

Right. This was a great question. I'm a big music fan. Well, to be honest, take a step back, some words of advice from a friend a few years ago who said, If you like reading, what you've got to do is you've've always got to have four or five things on the go to suit your mood. Don't just have the one novel that every night you read for 15 minutes. He said, Have a trash novel, have a biography, have a two-page publication, newspaper articles, and a serious read, because some nights you just want a two-pager, very light. Others, you want to get into something deep. By the side of my bed, I've got a whole raft of books and articles. Back to the book. I'm a big music fan, and I read the Springsteen, the autobiography, when it was first published and thought, What an amazing book. But I was really into Springsteen at the time. He's a wordsmith, lyrics, et cetera. I was going to put that, but I've just finished reading the Dave Groll autobiography. This is the guy who was in Nirvana and The Food Fight. I like their music, but I didn't know anything about Dave Groll.

Like Springsteen, what an amazing wordsmith. You can see how his lyrics are transformed into his book. It's called The Storyteller: A Tale of Life and music. It was a Sunday Times bestseller. What he does is he talks about in his own world, growing up as a bit of a misfit or a freak, becoming a punk rocker. He had a bit of great introduction to it by, I think, it was his cousin, and then leaving home at 16 to tour America in a punk band, and then right up to the present day. And it's a series of anecdotes, it's a series of musings, and some quite deep missives and thinking. And I tend to read 15, 20 minutes most of the night. It's part of my relaxation thing, and it's just perfect book for it.

Oh, I'm going to have to. I'm an.

Interesting individual.

Yeah. Do you know, my... It's not helping me this because every time I interview someone for the podcast to give me another book to add to my stack and it is getting to the point where my husband said, Janet, if that stack of books falls on you, it could be quite dangerous. I'm like, yeah, it really could, actually, by my bed. I started off with like three or four that were in the queue. And now it's like, if you can't see me, but it's a good couple of feet high. And I need to increase. I need to go to bed earlier and read for longer.

It's gettingIt's getting the time, James. I try to, so 10, 15 minutes every evening. But for me, reading and probably going to maybe theatre in a way, is when you have to fill in all the gaps, as opposed to seeing a special effects generated film where it's just thrown out. But it's just making the time to read. I think it's a great... We talked about mental health. I personally find if I watch something on my tablet late at night when I go into bed, I go to bed and I'm just buzzing and I can't.

Get to sleep.

But for me, just to read a chapter or so of a book switches everything off and it just gets you into a great space.

It does. Yeah, it's great. Really good for the imagination and for, like you say, the mental health. I will add it to my queue. Eventually, I'll get on to reading it and I'll let you know what I think. Very good. Thank you so much, Martin, for being a fantastic guest and for sharing your HR wisdom with us today. It's been really great to meet you. Thank you. Brilliant, John. Thank you.

Oh, thank you, Martin. Martin, what a great guest. And do check out Martin on LinkedIn and on his website, and all of those details are in the show notes. If you would like to give your colleagues access to our sober, curious society.

The doors are open at the moment.

Typically, the price will work out at something in the region of two pounds per employee per year, which is such great value way of offering them peer support from accredited sober coaches who can really support people and make a huge difference to their own personal wellbeing, their physical health, their mental health, their relationships, and set them on the right trajectory to have a happier, healthier life. It's such a rewarding piece of work. I absolutely love running this group, and I'd love for you to get involved and to get more employees into it. If that's not for you, perhaps you would instead think about joining our Sober business network, especially if you are in West Yorkshire. We're having a meetup in Obly on the 18th of October, 5:00 till 7:00 will be at the Functional Drinks Club. We've just got a few tickets left because it is quite a small venue, and I can't wait to meet a few more sober business owners who want to work together to elevate our businesses without the boozy networking. I hope to see a few of you there as well. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you in a couple of weeks.

If you'd like to learn more about creating an alcohol-safe workplace without killing a.

Buzz, visit choosesubnights.

Co.

Uk and head to the HR services page. Let's end the stigma because nobody should feel afraid to.

Ask for help with alcohol use.