With the way drug abuse is affecting workplaces in our everyday lives, employers have to realize that the best way to tackle drug abuse in the workplace, is to have a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the effects of drug abuse in work environments, to know how best to tackle this great problem.
When employees take drugs at work, it costs their workplace a great many things, such as workplace injuries, and compromised productivity. In the US alone, drug abuse cost U.S. business owners more than 140 billion dollars every year. The simplest way of tackling drug abuse in the workplace is by having your employers go through drug testing using urine. This is a very crucial way of knowing which of your employees smoking joints at work are.
According to the new federal mandatory guidelines for the workplace drug testing that became effective as at on Oct. 1, 2017 – thus gives the employers the authority to test for four semi-synthetic opioids: oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone and hydromorphone etc. However, if the results scream positive, as determined by a medical review officer (MRO), will not be reported to federal agencies. You, as an employer, might be thinking testing for drugs will cost you money. But I kid you not; not doing so will cost you a greater amount of money lately.
Look at the bigger picture, not just the present one. Nothing is more important and valuable than having a drug free workplace. Another advantage of having drug testing is that employees would feel less inclined to use drugs because the fact that it could and would threaten their job would pose a higher threat. It should be random, and it should often be.
Why do you ask?
It improves its efficiency and accuracy. At the moment, certain jobs have federally made drug testing crucial. They include pilots, truck drivers, train operators, and other jobs that safety is required to keep them going. Why not integrate safety into your workplace too? There is entirely no reason why you shouldn’t.
The ways you can go about this is to:
- Partnering with healthcare providers to help monitor and intervene when your workplace is affected by drugs.
- By reviewing the company’s drug-free policy.
- Ensuring that the drug testing includes tests for the common opioid painkiller drugs.
Do not partner up with just any drug testing facility. It is imperative that you partner with a highly qualified drug testing facility, where they offer effectiveness, efficiency, accuracy and speed and can also give you the most extensive range of testing services which includes specialized diagnosis, screening and evaluation.