Necessity of Pre-Employment Drug Testing at Workplace
Drug testing is usually conducted in the cases of crimes, accidents, fights, etc. wherein the victims are tested for usage of drugs. Of late, drug testing is being widely used in business scene. Organizations conduct drug testing to sort out the drug abusers and non-drug abusers among their employees.
There are two types of employment drug testing – pre-employment drug testing and post-employment drug testing. Pre-employment drug testing is done before recruiting individuals to ensure that drug abusers do not enter into the organization.
Many of the reputed organizations consider human resources as their greatest asset. They believe in creating a well-defined organization culture which is smooth, problem free, supportive and highly motivating for the employees. This results in attaining higher productivity.
According to the latest reports (2009), released by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), out of 19.3 million drug abusers aged 18 years or above, 12.9 million were employed either full time or part time in United States. This data indicates that most of the drug users are getting employed who may affect the organizational culture. Pre-employment drug testing helps in creating a sense of fear in the individuals looking for job, as there are many chances of them getting rejected on testing positive.
Reasons for pre-employment drug testing
Pre-employment drug testing is more advantageous than post-employment drug testing as it blocks drug abusers from entering into the organization. It helps in selecting the right candidates who suits the organization. It is necessary for pre-employment drug testing is being adopted by many organizations because of its various advantages, such as:
Reduces tardiness and absenteeism
A drug abuser generally will be lazy and gets ill frequently. As a result, he/she becomes irregular to work, which effects company’s productivity. Pre-employment drug testing helps the organization in choosing drug free individuals who are very sincere and committed to their work.
Reduces accidents
A person working under the influence of drugs is more likely to get involved in workplace accidents. This is due to the instability of mind due to drug abuse. This is not only dangerous to the abuser, but also to the company and his co-workers.
Reduces attitude problems
Drug abusers are more likely to engage in violent behavior, steal or fight with other employees. These attitude problems at workplace result in low work productivity of abusers as well as co-workers, affecting the company’s performance. Pre-employment drug testing helps the organization in creating a dignified and problem free work culture, as the problem creators (drug abusers) are filtered before entering the organization.
Reduces healthcare policy costs
Every organization will have health policies defined for their employees. Drug abusing individuals have higher chances of falling ill. Hence by recruiting drug abusers majority of the amount of these policies will be attributed to the drug abusers, which is a total loss to the organization. Therefore, pre-employment drug testing helps in cutting down these costs.
Reduces workers compensation
Due to the problematic mentality of the drug abusers, there are many chances of them getting hurt. And when these things happen in the premises of the company, the company is held responsible and asked to pay compensation towards the drug abusers. This is a loss to the company. Pre-employment drug testing helps in stopping this kind of individuals.
Because of all the above reasons, the organizations should consider conducting pre-employment drug testing at the workplace. Pre-employment drug testing on its own has many benefits for an organization. It helps in improving and maintaining healthy work relations in a company. Organizations can mainly avoid the burden of handling vexing and problematic employees. This results in reducing tardiness, absenteeism, accidents, workers compensations, health policy costs in an organization. Hence, an environment of enhanced culture and productivity can be achieved.
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