Episode 115: Drug and Alcohol Testing

Voice Over: You’re about to listen to another episode of What The Hell Just Happened?! Join Paul Edwards and his guests as they discuss and sometimes even solve some interesting HR problems.

Paul: And… I’m gonna go off the rails sometimes and talk about whatever I want.

Michelle: Hi, Paul. How you doing?

Paul: Hi, Michelle. I’m doing good. What’s up?

Michelle: Oh, some interesting stuff, Paul.

Paul: Okay, good. I love interesting stuff.

Michelle: That’s the majority of what we see in the Solution Center. It’s some interesting things. There’s never the same day in HR. But I thought today we could focus a little bit more on something that is a bit stressful for employers to deal with.

Paul: Okay.

Michelle: And that is drug and alcohol testing.

Paul: Okay.

Michelle: Now, the process itself is pretty straightforward.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Michelle: But the circumstances surrounding it is usually what can cloud judgment, what can bring forth that stress in you as a manager, as an owner, whoever’s having to facilitate this. So, there’s a lot of different reasons why you would drug test.

Paul: Okay.

Michelle: Or send somebody for an alcohol test. Exactly, but I wanted to focus in on reasonable suspicion.

Paul: Ooh, okay.

Michelle: So, when to send someone, kind of the basics of how, but then I want to talk about just some common questions we get because that’s what’s being talked about right now. Those are the calls we’re getting. So, just really focusing in.

Paul: Oh, really getting a lot of calls around this now?

Michelle: More than usual. It’s not every single day.

Paul: No, I get it.

Michelle: But personally, I’ve taken a lot more calls than usual, and it could be, I mean, I don’t know why.

Paul: Yeah, so that was going to be my question to you. Any insight as to why these questions are becoming more frequent? It’s okay if you don’t have it.

Michelle: I don’t know the answer to that, but I will say that it seems employees are really under a lot of stress. And that could be in their personal lives. When employers call in, they’re usually sharing some backstory, and that backstory is typically, hey, I have an employee. They’re going through it, they’re going through a rough time.

Paul: We just noticed, or we’re seeing what we suspect.

Michelle: Exactly. So, what I wanted to ask you, Paul, is if, okay, so if I come to you as an employer and I say, hey, I heard through the grapevine that Susie likes to party on the weekends. It wouldn’t be a far stretch. It wouldn’t be a reach to say that she maybe comes into the workplace under the influence. I haven’t seen it. What do I do?

Paul: Oh, okay. So, Susie’s not coming in impaired?

Michelle: Not that we’ve observed.

Paul: So nobody’s observed it, but now we’re saying because there are drugs in the world and Susie is in that same world, then maybe we should drug test Susie.

Michelle: Yeah, can I do that?

Paul: Well, you can. You can, but you probably should also drug test everybody else in the office as well. And I just want to put this out there right at the beginning. I get this question, or used to get it a lot when I was in the Solution Center myself. The question is: we want to drug test, and we just want to drug test everybody. I want a drug testing policy, and we’re going to start drug testing. And I would always ask why. Are you having a problem? And they’d say, no, no, we’re not having a problem, but I just want to know.

Michelle: Yeah.

Paul: My insurance carrier maybe has said they’ll give me a little break on workers’ comp or something like that. But I just want to know. I would reply with, well, be prepared to find out that your best employee smokes pot and have to fire them for that. Or that your best employee does something, and they perform fantastic, and they’re great, but as soon as you find out, you can’t unknow it. If your policy is “we drug test and we fire people who fail drug tests,” then you’re going to have to fire whoever tests positive. And that would kind of give a lot of people pause.

Michelle: Yeah, and even though you’re saying that was the conversation you were having 15+ years ago…

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: That’s still the conversation today.

Paul: Right.

Michelle: So, I think there’s a nice balance here where an employer should have a process. They should have a drug policy or drug-free workplace policy.

Paul: Compliant. It varies a little bit in different states.

Michelle: You are exactly right. You hit the nail on the head there, Paul. So, have a policy, right? And have a compliant policy. That’s the main takeaway for your first step. Make sure you have a process here.

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: And that’s where you reach out to experts to make sure you’re handling it correctly.

Paul: Exactly.

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