Why Drug Test?

Substance abuse in the workplace has been proven to directly effect safety, quality of work, health insurance rates, turnover, employee absenteeism, accidents and productivity. In order to secure top employees human resource mangers check out employee references, history, and qualifications.

The top reason for a drug testing program is safety. Drug use impairs a person’s ability to perform at their top level. Even if the use of drugs is restricted to outside working hours the effects are long lasting. An employee could even consider their lunch break outside of working hours and come back to work high. Employee drug testing programs are able to identify safety risks and eliminate them. This benefits the company as a whole as well as the employees and it lowers worker comp claims and injuries.

Employers have a right to decide on who they choose to hire. Employee drug testing programs ensure that the quality of work is not affected by substance abuse. It has been proven that drug testing programs raise the quality of work by simply eliminating employees that use drugs who cannot contribute 100% to the company.

Employee drug testing programs identify the user and allow the company to clean up the work place. This can greatly reduced health insurance premiums and health costs to the company. In the state of Idaho the worker’s comp benefit to the companies that drug test is up to 5% off their yearly premium. This can be a huge benefit to larger companies.

Employee drug testing programs offer pre-employment drug screening. By not hiring drug users a company will decrease its turnover rate. The testing also eliminates the need to fire someone down the road for substance abuse.

Employee drug testing also allows the company to do random testing. This helps reduce the amount of employees doing drugs. It also has been proven to reduce employee absenteeism within the workplace. Drug related absenteeism and sick leave could be devastating to the company both in terms of cost and company morale.

Accidents are more likely when there are drugs involved. Employee drug testing programs act as a deterrent to drug use. This may influence an employee’s decision making regarding drugs as the possibility of a test is always there. Most programs test immediately after an accident to see if drugs were a factor. This reduces a company’s liability. If drug use is a factor the employee will be dealt with immediately before any more damage is done, thus reducing the cost to the company.

All human resource managers want productive, happy employees. Productivity is paramount to the success of any workplace. Substance abusers are often less productive, file more health insurance claims, and bring down the morale of a company. Drug testing programs significantly contribute to a safer, productive and conflict free environment.