Most employers assume the risk is obvious.

The employee who smells of alcohol. The one who stumbles in on a Monday. The problem you can see coming from a distance.

But that's not usually how it arrives.

It tends to arrive quietly. In the rhythm of a working week, the culture of a team, the assumption that a few drinks at a client lunch is just part of how business gets done. By the time something actually goes wrong - an incident, a near miss, a formal complaint - the conditions for it have often been in place for a long time.

This week, much of the UK has been sitting in record-breaking sunshine. I took that photo in the garden - Corona Cero, zero alcohol - and found myself thinking about how much the conversation around drinking has shifted. And what that shift means for employers.

The culture question employers often miss

The zero-alcohol drinks market in the UK has grown significantly over the last few years. You can walk into most supermarkets now and find an entire dedicated section. Restaurants list alcohol-free options alongside wine without a second thought. People are making different choices - and doing it without the social awkwardness that used to follow.

That's not a small thing. It reflects a broader shift in how we think about alcohol. Not prohibition. Not judgement. A growing recognition that you can have the moment - the cold drink, the end of a long day - without the alcohol being the point.

So what does this mean for employers?

Not quite what the obvious answer suggests. It doesn't mean banning drinks at the Christmas party or removing alcohol from client entertaining.

It means something more practical.

It means asking whether your workplace alcohol policy still reflects the world your employees are actually living in. Most policies were written some time ago. Many haven't been looked at since. They tend to cover the obvious scenarios - showing up unfit for work, testing after an incident - but they don't always engage with the greyer areas. The long lunch. The industry conference. The culture where saying no to a drink can feel professionally awkward.

These aren't always comfortable conversations to have. But they are necessary ones.

The podcast conversation that started this

I was recently part of a podcast that touched on exactly this. How alcohol at work tends to be underestimated as a risk, not because employers don't care, but because it rarely looks like a risk until it is one. The creeping normalisation. The reluctance to name it. The gap between what a policy says on paper and what actually happens day to day.

One of the things that came up was how rarely managers feel equipped to have these conversations. They can see something's off. They're not sure if they're overreacting. They don't know what their legal position is. So they leave it - and the situation quietly gets worse.

That's not a failure of character. It's a failure of preparation. And it's fixable.

The bit most policies miss: visible signposting

A good policy does three things. It sets clear expectations. It gives managers the confidence to act when they need to. And - this is the part that gets overlooked most often - it makes sure anyone who wants support can find it quietly, without having to explain themselves to anyone first.

That last point matters more than most organisations realise.

Research suggests that 57% of UK workers want access to workplace counselling, but only 22% are actually using it. The gap isn't usually about availability. It's about visibility. People don't use support they don't know exists, or that feels difficult to access without drawing attention to themselves.

If your organisation has an Employee Assistance Programme, the practical question isn't just whether it covers alcohol-related support - most do. The question is whether your employees actually know it's there, know how to access it confidentially, and feel safe enough to do so without it becoming a conversation with their line manager first.

That's a signposting question as much as a policy question. And it's worth asking.

What a review looks like in practice

If your organisation hasn't looked at its alcohol policy in a while, the starting point is usually simpler than people expect.

Read what you've got. Does it reflect how your business actually operates? Does it cover the scenarios your managers are likely to face, not just the clear-cut ones? Do your managers know the policy exists, and more importantly, do they know what to do with it?

Does it point people toward support, not just spell out consequences?

If the answer to any of those is "probably not," that's useful information. It doesn't mean you have a problem. It means you have a gap, and gaps are straightforward to close.

At Lemon Cherry, we've been working with businesses across high-risk sectors for many many years - construction, transport, manufacturing, care - helping them get their policies into shape and ensuring the people who need to act on them feel prepared to do so. We use Home Office approved equipment, and we treat everything we're involved in with the discretion it deserves.

Because the goal isn't to catch people out. It's to make sure everyone goes home safely, and that anyone who needs support can find it.

That photo is still on my phone. Cold bottle, garden, sun going down.

Zero alcohol. Full moment.

There's something to that, I think.