A Guide to Monitoring and Managing Alcohol and Drug Abuse at Workplace

It’s important to maintain the reputation of your place of work. The sad reality is that the behavior of one employee can be enough to tarnish the relationship you have with a customer or group of customers.

It isn’t just a behavioral problem you have to worry about: the use of drugs and alcohol in the workplace can actively endanger the safety and wellbeing of the workplace. This why drug and alcohol testing at work has become so common of a practice.

How can you best manage and monitor the use of illicit materials in the workplace? Read on and we’ll walk you through everything you need to know.

Implement a Policy & Be Communicative

You have a responsibility as an employer to lay down the law when it comes to the environment of your workplace. Consider your current hiring practices and workplace culture. Have you made it clear to current and incoming employees that this is a strict drug and alcohol-free workplace?

It the answer is no, this is something you should strongly consider making clear to employees and in future hiring situations.

Having the conversation about drugs and alcohol and the potential punishments upfront will create a clear line of communication between you and your employees. Nothing should be implied or left up to interpretation.

If an employee does disobey your policy and shows up to work inebriated, they will both know they are acting against company policy and will have an awareness of what ramifications might await them.

This can make handling the scenario with your employees much easier.

Monitoring Drug & Alcohol Use

There are many different reasons that employers utilize drug and alcohol testing in the workplace. Many include these tests as part of their hiring process in order to reinforce the company policy on these substances, as well as improve safety in the workplace.

In some situations, state regulations may require this form of testing, or an employer’s insurance company might.

In some cases, an employer or an employer’s insurance company might make a request for a drug test only if an accident occurs in the workplace. This known as post accident drug testing, and the process seeks to prove that an accident either was or wasn’t caused due to inebriation of some sort.

If you are not legally required by law to include drug and alcohol testing as part of your employment process, the decision then rests with you.

Some employers like being able to assert this kind of control over their employees, while others feel as if it’s an invasion of privacy that they don’t have a right to.

A Guide to Drug and Alcohol Testing at Work

As an employer, you have to make a lot of big decisions about drug and alcohol testing at work and in the workplace. The above information can be very helpful in deciding on what plan of action you should make.

Need more advice for the workplace? Keep scrolling our blog for more info.