If your employees come to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol, it could impact their ability to work. Employees who are impaired by drugs or alcohol are more likely to exhibit poor concentration, carelessness, risk-taking behaviour or errors in judgement.
Choosing the right type of drug testing for your business can help you to drive the right behaviour from your workforce. If you’re unsure about which type of drug testing is right for you, here are some options to consider.
1. Pre-employment drug testing
Pre-employment drug testing takes place during recruitment and ideally before you offer someone a role. It’s a smart way to make sure you don’t bring people into your business who take drugs.
Do you plan to test for drugs once your new employee starts work? If being drug-free is important once they are in your business, it makes sense to check if your candidate meets your criteria before you offer them the role.
Pre-employment drug testing ensures you only offer jobs to people you want to employ.
Make sure you mention you will be drug testing in your job advert too. If you’re clear upfront that you plan to carry out a pre-employment drug test, it may stop people who don’t suit your business from applying.
Book your pre-employment drug testing with WorkAble today.
2. Random drug testing
If your business is safety sensitive (i.e. industries like manufacturing, forestry or construction) you need to proactively protect the safety of your employees and the public. Random drug testing helps you to identify whether drugs are putting the safety of your workplace at risk.
Random drug testing involves testing randomly selected employees on an ongoing basis, to check for the presence of drugs. The aim of random drug testing is to identify whether any employees are taking alcohol or drugs that could prevent them from working safely. The test itself also works as a deterrent because employees are less likely to risk taking drugs if they feel they might get caught.
To be successful, random drug testing needs to be independent and ongoing. It’s important that results can be trusted and acted upon, and the business involved needs to have a clear process in place to deal with any positive results.
Due to the frequency of random drug testing, it also helps if it can be supported by a mobile drug testing service. For industries where safety is a concern, being able to work safely remotely and testing onsite is an important part of monitoring.This ensures that businesses can support their goals with the correct volume and location of testing, without impacting productivity.
Mobile drug testing – we come to you. Talk to us about your business needs today.
3. Reasonable cause and post incident drug testing
Drug impairment can increase the risk of injury and fatality. If you want your employees to stay safe then it’s important to establish from the beginning that they cannot work while they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
If drugs present a safety risk to your business then it’s worthwhile investing time and money to educate your team about those risks. Understanding what drugs do and how they impact your ability to work can help to stop your workforce from putting themselves and others at risk. You can find more information about the different drugs and their impact here.
Drug or alcohol impairment testing is an effective tool to help you confirm if someone is working under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Particular instances where you may use drug or alcohol impairment testing are after a workplace accident or incident, or if an employee shows signs of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Drug or alcohol impairment testing can be an effective solution to prevent drug use in the workforce. In combination with education, you can use this tool to make sure your staff understand the risks that come from being impaired.
As with all drug testing, it’s important that your employees understand what your business’s drug policy is and how that’s represented in the employment agreement. It’s also essential that you are clear what action will be taken if there is an incident at work and they are found to have drugs or alcohol in their system.
What is the right drug testing policy for your business?
Understanding when and where you can drug and alcohol test your employees means understanding the balance between the type of business you run and your obligations around consent and the privacy of your employees.
The right drug testing regime can protect the safety of your workforce, the public and the culture of your business. Your policy around drug testing should always be supported with the right information in employment contracts and agreements. Being upfront with your employees and focusing on education is one of the most effective ways to reduce the use of drugs in your workplace.
If you need help identifying or implementing the right drug testing regime for your business, contact WorkAble. We provide a range of drug testing services including pre-employment drug testing, random drug testing programmes and drug or alcohol impairment testing.
Our focus is on making it easy for your business to stay safe. We’re mobile so we come to you, meaning less downtime for your employees. All of our testing is carried out by registered nurses who are fully trained in using our testing equipment. Our results are reliable, and can be used to support the conditions of your employment agreements.
Contact Workable today on: 06 863 3427
