Identification of Substance Abusers in the Workplace

Abstract

Substance abuse is one of the major social issues facing us today. It not only has a direct impact on the individual user, but on society as a whole. Since it can have a large, direct impact on productivity in the workplace, management needs to identify substance abusers in order to assist them in becoming fully productive members of the organization. This article discusses the primary methodology presently used for the detection of substance abuse in the workplace—urinalysis—and then offers an alternative to this popular, albeit costly and controversial, procedure.

Does pre-employment drug use predict on-the-job suitability?

“…Self-report measures can be contrasted with physiological measures (e.g., urinalysis) of drug use. While the accuracy of physiological measures of drug use is a matter of continuing debate, clearly the effectiveness of physiological measures available at present is restricted to identifying recent (e.g., days or weeks) drug use that leaves residual chemical markers in the user's body (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1987; Rosen, 1987). Thus, the physiological measures available to date have no value in identifying historical patterns of drug use.…”

Legalization of drugs: Effects on the workplace

“…Eighty-four percent of the managers expected that there would be an increased emphasis on supervisory monitoring of employees' behavior. Critics have argued that drug testing represents an abdication of management's responsibility to evaluate workers' behavior (Crown Rosen, 1987); these data suggest that legalization of drugs may have the effect of increasing perception of this responsibility (see Becker, 1987, for a similar prediction). As expected, managers felt that drug testing would become more important if drugs are legalized, with a bigger increase in applicant testing than in random testing of current employees.…”

Alternative Solutions to the Workplace Drug Problem: Results of a Survey of Personnel Managers

“…The principal limitation of the prior questions is the emphasis on drug use, rather than drug-related impairment of work performance. Critics of Percentage of Employees Using Drugs Impaired On The Job drug testing have argued that employees' use of' drugs should be of concern to management only if it affects their work performance (Crown & Rosse, 1988;Greenberg, 1987;Rosen, 1987). Consequently, our third question asked personnel managers to estimate the percentage of employees with an alcohol-and/or drug-related problem that affects their work performance.…”