PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS

Talent Management Perspectives

Published February 2008

Drug and Alcohol Testing Technology Can Make Workplaces Safer

Kellye Whitney

If someone said there was technology on the market that could cut hiring costs significantly and actually make your employees safer, many HR and talent management leaders would probably break their necks trying to get it first. But this type of software does exist, and has for some time, in the world of employment background screening.

It's commonly called drug and alcohol testing, but innovations have customized legacy software to offer a more flexible, easy-to-use, one-stop resource that can better meet HR and talent managers' needs. Products such as RandomTrac offer features such as automatic report generation for auditing and other management reports related to how frequently employees are pooled, etc.

At one time, companies that actively concerned themselves with drug testing were likely attached to DOT (Department of Transportation) compliance mandates, said Sandra Serrano, executive director of occupational health care solutions at Employment Background Investigations Inc. But more and more corporate organizations are warming up to drug and alcohol testing technology that can help them enforce a zero tolerance policy on the illicit use of drugs and alcohol in the workplace.

Serrano said the random testing element available in recent technology offerings should help catch more offenders and keep employees at work in a safer environment.

"Statistics show that there's a certain amount of the workforce that use drugs and alcohol everyday," she explained. "Those around them are affected by the negativity of it, the absenteeism, the tardiness, even injuries."

Organizations that leverage technology on top of a more comprehensive pre-employment screening program have a better chance of keeping their workforces drug free, she said. Similarly, random drug testing also helps companies avoid costly hiring mistakes.

"There are statistics out there that show people under the influence of drugs and alcohol commonly have more than three jobs in one year. Any kind of policy, starting with pre-employment screening, background checks and so forth, helps support the organization in keeping it drug free during that time period after they become employed, not before," Serrano said.

Deploying random testing means someone who cleaned up for the initial test won't be able to hide forever. Further, the random nature of the technology helps prevent accusations of unfair employee targeting.

"It's like a generic lottery," she said. "My name is Sandra Serrano, and my last name is Spanish, but no one can say, 'Let's target her.' In a random program, everyone is put into a pool, and all the employees that need to be put into the random population are associated a generic number. When the lottery comes, you have your ratios of how often you like to pool and what the percentage is per year. If you pool every month, and if you pool 50 percent of the population per year, now there's no discrimination associated with the random program. Most HR can manage the hiring and firing lists and do checks and balances.

"Candidates and employees need to understand that the workplace has little tolerance for this type of behavior. It costs the employers dollars and cents every day, not just in productivity, but in injuries, and not just to the person under the influence, but to the co-workers around them who may be injured or have to work harder to redo that person's work."