5 Essential Elements Of A Workplace Drug Policy

Many people are recovering in a drug rehab facility as a result of their drug addiction coming to light while they are at work. Following this discovery, it could be that their employer has a policy supporting their employees for such health issues, which thankfully is the enlightened stance many of today’s employers take. Unfortunately, others will immediately dismiss an employee who is found to have or admits to having a drug addiction.

We will assume that you are in the former group if you are an employer. Even so, whilst we would never suggest that you condone the use of illegal drugs, we trust that you agree drug addiction is a health issue that should be dealt with using treatment and support rather than punishment and sanctions.

One of the ways this can be achieved is by having a clear drug policy for your business. This is a crucial element of your business’s health and safety responsibilities, which apply to you, the employer, and your employees. The best policies of this type are created following consultation with employees and their representatives. This way, the drug policy is more thorough and seen as an agreement within the workplace rather than a diktat from above.

An effective workplace drug policy will include the following five elements:

Drug Policy Objectives

Your workplace drug policy objectives must be clear and understood by all they apply to. This means avoiding jargon or legalise and instead using plain English. Examples of possible objectives are:

• Maintaining a safe workplace and healthy working environment.
• Reducing or avoiding the associated costs linked to drug use for individuals and businesses.
• Enabling other workplace health and safety initiatives to include actions on drug issues.
• Providing all employees with access to information and advice on drug use.
• They are promoting drug support resources such as drug rehab and encouraging employees to seek help from them if they have a drug use issue.

3 Frequently Asked Questions About Drug Testing At Work

When you study or research a subject such as drug addiction, you soon realise that it covers a huge array of different areas such as drug laws, drug treatment, drug rehab, drug education in schools, crime, and drug use at work, to name but a few. They may not all seem similar at first glance, but when you dig deeper, you will soon find that they are all linked in some way.

The subject we wish to discuss in this article concerns one of those we listed above: drugs at work, or to be more precise, drug testing at work. Drug testing at work can be a contentious issue with many employees feeling that it impinges on their rights. This belief prevails even if an individual has never taken an illegal drug in their life rather than them simply trying to avoid being tested and subsequently found to have taken drugs at work.

However, such are the drug, health and safety, and employment laws in this country; it is the case that almost all employees could be subject to a drug test while they are employed. For some, it has to be expected due to the position they hold. Obvious examples would be an airline pilot or a crane operator in a port facility. In those cases, and others where absolute clarity of mind and body are essential, zero tolerance is the legal stipulation, and mandatory drug testing is the norm.

So, what if you do not fly a plane, operate a crane, or do any other kind of job that would require mandatory testing? Well, that is where many of the questions surrounding drug testing at work arise, and thus we thought it would be useful to list the three most frequently asked of those questions, and give answers to them as best we could, so here they are.