CleanFleet cares about your employees maintaining a healthy lifestyle and drug and alcohol testing is a way to invest in your employees Health & Wellness. Drug and Alcohol Testing has been shown to help lower the costs of absenteeism, staff turn-over, and can decrease your insurance premiums.
Work can be an important and effective place to address alcoholism and drug abuse problems. Many individuals and families face a host of difficulties closely associated with problem drinking and drug use, and these problems quite often spill over into the workplace.
More than 70 percent of substance abusers are employed, according to ACDE. In fact, an estimated 3.1 percent of employed adults admit they've used illicit drugs before reporting to work and 7.1 percent drank on the job one or more times in the past year, according to sources cited by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Just seeing others abusing drugs or alcohol on the job can bring down employee morale. One-third of workers are aware of drug sales conducted at work and one-fifth of workers and managers across a wide range of industries and company sizes report that a coworker’s on or off-the-job drinking jeopardized their own productivity and safety. Your staff may wonder, "What sort of company are we working for that allows managers to be hopped up on cocaine during meeting and floor sales staff to call in sick every Friday?" Over time, even your best workers will grow tired of working harder while substance abusers take it easy.
By encouraging and supporting treatment with your testing program, employers can dramatically assist in reducing the negative impact of alcoholism and addiction in the workplace.
Sometimes the outcome of investing in a drug and alcohol program can be subtle. One small employer in a conservative industry had fostered a very close culture within their company. All of their staff had been there for more than 15 years and they knew each other like family. The owner was confident that none of his employees were using drugs, but under the terms of a contract with a new client he landed, he was required to implement a new random drug testing program.
Unfortunately, he was wrong. His bookkeeper, who was involved in a car accident a few years earlier, had inadvertently got addicted to painkillers.
She wasn’t taking them to get high or because she liked the feeling – she was taking them because her body had developed a dependency and her doctor did not properly warn her about the risks. When she tested positive on the company’s new random drug testing program, it brought her problem to light and enabled her to get help before she overdosed or caused an accident.
Her employer was grateful that he was able to help her get into a treatment program, and she was grateful that her problem was uncovered so she could get help and back to work.
Employee substance abuse results in higher health care expenditures for illnesses and injuries, driving up your insurance premiums. Studies show that drug abusers use up twice as many medical benefits as their coworkers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The American Council For Drug Education adds that substance abusers are directly responsible for health care costs that are three times higher than the national average.
Generally, substance abuse costs U.S. employers more than $276 billion each year, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The costs stem from lost productivity, workplace accidents, and increased health-care and insurance costs, so it makes sense to do whatever you can to keep your workplace drug-free.
Drug testing is a way to invest in your employees Health & Wellness. CleanFleet’s Drug and Alcohol Testing Program compliments your employee Health and Wellness efforts by assisting in reducing the negative impact of alcoholism and addiction in the workplace, while reducing their costs.
Using customized CleanForce programs, we can help your organization establish and manage a full-service drug and alcohol testing program designed to each individual employer and budget. We manage the entire program. Our customized drug and alcohol testing programs include: pre-employment testing, random testing, reasonable suspicion and post-accident testing, return-to-work and follow-up testing, collection site management, record keeping and reporting assistance, consultation, and more.
An effective drug testing program promotes a safe, productive workplace. By monitoring industry trends, you can maintain your program effectiveness by understanding which drugs are being abused and modifying your testing panel based on that information, such as with the changes in prescription and designer drug abuse.
Call us today for a free consultation at 503-479-6082 or email us with your questions or concerns.