The Importance Of Drug And Alcohol Testing In The Corporate World
Drug and alcohol abuse has destroyed many lives. It’s a serious problem affecting many individuals and society as a whole.
Unfortunately, the statistics show an emerging trend in high-intensity drinking in recent years. A large percentage of adults are into binge drinking alcohol, which can lead to many problems in the family, affect school and work performance, damage relationships and cause serious health concerns and even death.
The far-reaching consequences of this problem can affect the workplace in many ways. This is why drug and alcohol testing has become a valuable tool for employers to ensure safety and compliance in their organisation.
This post will explore the importance of drug and alcohol testing in the workplace and its benefits for employers and employees. And if you plan on implementing this, Lextox has a variety of methods, including blood alcohol testing, hair drug and alcohol testing, and the latest innovation in the industry–Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring (SCRAM) testing.
Now, here is why it is important in the corporate world to conduct drug and alcohol testing.
1. To Help Increase Productivity
Drug and alcohol use can affect every team member’s performance and may lead to decreased productivity due to frequent absences. You may see your organisation’s output dwindle and the quality of work less than stellar because this directly affects customer satisfaction and lead to a decrease in profits.
Sometimes, this could be an issue from your most trustworthy and high-performing team members, which affects the entire team’s morale.
Alcohol and drug can negatively affect anyone involved with it. Even the most resilient and hardworking team member may succumb to this, which could even lead to conditions like depression and anxiety. Seeing this early through drug and alcohol testing will be a significant step in preventing personal problems that may lead to productivity issues.
2. To Ensure Workplace Safety
Using substances like drugs or alcohol can impair judgment and affect a person’s decision-making capabilities. More importantly, it will affect coordination and reaction time, which can be a dangerous combination, especially for high-risk tasks like driving a truck or operating heavy machinery.
When you implement drug and alcohol testing in the workplace, employees will be more careful in avoiding using these substances to preserve their jobs and prevent endangering themselves or others while at work.
3. To Comply With Legal Mandates
Many industries, such as healthcare, transportation, education, government, information technology, construction, and private security, require drug and alcohol testing. But those in healthcare and transportation are required by law.
Failure to abide by this regulation may result in hefty fines and penalties for your business. In some cases, you may lose your business license, which can be a major dilemma. So, if you want to avoid facing legal and financial consequences, it’s best to adhere to and implement testing in the workplace.
4. To Uplift Company Reputation And Morale
Implementing a drug and alcohol testing program in your organisation can show your company’s safety commitment. This can manifest your concern for your team member’s health and well-being. You will also be viewed more favourably by the public and your customers. And if anything negative happens, you know you took the necessary steps and complied with the rules and won’t be accused of negligence.
5. To Provide Assistance To Employees
Suppose you have team members struggling with substance abuse. In that case, you can offer them support by giving them access to counselling and treatment programs to overcome their issue of substance abuse and get back to working productively.
However, you may not be able to provide this level of support if you don’t know they need it in the first place. Hence, drug and alcohol testing is imperative.
6. To Protect Company Assets
As previously mentioned, substance use can affect a person’s judgment and decision-making skills. This can result in costly mistakes and damages to company assets. When this happens, production efficiency will get severely affected, and there might be losses in inventory and huge repair and replacement expenses.
In some cases, those affected by substance use may resort to fraud and theft, leading to insurmountable financial losses for the company. Thus, having drug and alcohol testing in place will ensure you are carrying out the necessary steps to avoid this.
Choosing the Right Drug and Alcohol Testing Program
There are several factors to consider once you decide to implement drug and alcohol testing in your organisation. You have to think about the type of testing, cost, logistics, and frequency.
There are eight options for testing in the workplace, they are:
- Pre-employment
- Random
- Reasonable suspicion
- Post-accident
- Blanket
- Voluntary
- Rehabilitation
- Post-positive
Each test serves a purpose, and you must know which matters to your organisation so you can implement the right one.
Now, here are the different methods of drug and alcohol testing:
- Urine testing – The most common type that can detect a wide range of drugs, including opioids, cocaine, marijuana, and amphetamines.
- Hair testing – This can detect long-term drug use and will even see a use for as far as 90 days.
- Saliva testing – A less invasive method that can detect recent use of drugs
- Blood testing – Used to know the results, such as in post-accident scenarios, immediately.
- Breath testing – Quick method of testing for quick determination of alcohol use.
All these methods have advantages and disadvantages. It would be best to determine what your organisation needs and consider each method’s cost and limitations.
Conclusion
Maintaining a safe, healthy, and productive workplace in today’s demanding environment can be difficult. But with the help of an effective drug and alcohol testing program, you can ensure that you’re taking the necessary steps to prevent unfortunate circumstances in your organisation.
Early detection is crucial in addressing this problem. Your employees will feel that they matter as you’re looking after their welfare and are concerned about their careers. Hopefully, with this program in place, no more lives will go to waste because of the ill effects of drug and alcohol use.