Drug Testing In The Workplace

Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Despite still being relatively new, the phenomenon of drug and alcohol testing is one of the most controversial topics in the realm of human resources. The controversy that surrounds this practice emanates from the fact that it evokes ranging from key business subjects such as social responsibility and the personal issues of privacy (Pidd & Roche, 2014). Some businesses perceive that they have the right of testing their employees. However, others perceive it as largely unnecessary particularly if the organizations hire the right employees. The validity of proposing arguments emanates from the issue of drug use and its impact on workplace safety. The employees that abuse drugs or alcohol

For instance, information from the United States Department of Labor indicates that up to twenty percent of the workers involved in dangerous, life-threatening accidents tested positive for alcohol or illicit drugs. Through human resource departments, the employers often provide help to the employees that test positive for abusing alcohol or drugs by placing them in recovery programs at the expense of the companies (Pidd & Roche, 2014). This aspect is advantageous to the employers who tend to benefit from the experience of the employees that recover without having to hire or train new employees. In a similar manner, the employees gain the advantage of escaping the shackles of drug or alcohol addiction as well as spiritual, emotional, and financial freedom (Pidd & Roche, 2014). Therefore drug and alcohol testing is beneficial for both the employees and the employers particularly in workplaces that require high levels of safety. Moreover, in scenarios where an employer has reasonable suspicion of drug or alcohol use among the members of the workforce, random drug and alcohol tests tend to become highly necessary. The main argument in this context revolves around the effects of drug and alcohol use or

While personality tests have incorporated use for a long time, their use escalated after 1988 when federal laws banned the utilization of polygraphs (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Several factors justify the increasing popularity of personality tests. The first major reason emanates from the fact that bad hiring decisions tend to be costly in some key respects. Events such as theft result in costing companies directly while drug use indirectly costs them in terms of sickness and absenteeism among others (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). With such events resulting in triggering significant economic losses, personality tests emerge as viable solutions for limiting the scope of companies to undertake bad hiring decisions. Therefore, the ability to judge the honesty of an applicant or to forecast the likelihood of an employee to engage in substance abuse is extremely useful (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). In a similar manner, the fear of legal liability for negligent hiring or sexual harassment triggers employer to undertake screening. The screening in this context serves the purpose of identifying emotional disorders or predicting the tendencies of the job applicants towards violence or harassing behavior (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). The undertaking of screening is necessary for the endeavors of companies to ensure that they make the right hiring decisions and prevent