Managing Drug And Alcohol Misuse In The Workplace

Employers have a legal duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees. You can better manage health and safety risks in the workplace by understanding the signs of drug and alcohol misuse. You should develop a policy to deal with drug and alcohol-related problems and be prepared to support your employees. 

Image – free for commercial use

What the issues are and what to look out for

Misuse of drugs and alcohol is not the same thing as dependence. Misuse is the use of illegal drugs, alcohol, medicines, and substance like solvents. There are some warning signs that you can look out for, including:

• Unexplained or frequent absences
• A change in behaviour
• Unexplained dips in productivity
• More accidents or near-misses
• Performance or conduct issues
• Stress or illness

Consult your employees

You should start by consulting your employees on matters of health and safety. This consultation should involve you giving your employees information about the policy, but also listening to them and taking on board what they say. 

You could ask your team about they know about the effects of drugs and alcohol on health and safety, and about restrictions or rules about the use of drugs and alcohol in the business. This is especially important in industries where staff have access to drugs or alcohol, such as nursing, or hospitality. 

Look at safety-critical work

The next stage should be considering the kind of work that you do, and any safety-critical elements that drug or alcohol misuse would have a serious impact on. This could include:

• Using machinery
• Using electrical equipment or ladders
• Driving or operating heavy lifting equipment

This information can then be used to help you create your risk assessment. 

If you have employees in safety-critical roles who seek help for drug or alcohol misuse, you might have to, at least temporarily, transfer them into another role for their own safety and the safety of others.

Develop a policy

All organisations can benefit from having in place an agreed policy on the misuse of drugs or alcohol. This drug and alcohol policy could be part of your overall health and safety policy.

If one of your employees tells you that they are struggling with a drug or alcohol problem, an effective policy ought to be in place to help them and offer proper support, rather than turning to dismissing them. 

The policy you put in place ought to also highlight when you will act to take disciplinary or other action. For example, you might include that you will report the possession of drugs or dealing in the workplace to the police immediately. 

If you choose to use screening or testing for drugs and alcohol, you must also include that in your policy. 

Your policy ought to be checked regularly, so you know that it’s working. If you find it isn’t, you should be prepared to make changes and adjustments to the policy until it does work. 

Screening and testing for drugs and alcohol

Some employers decide to include screenings as part of their drug and alcohol policy. Random drug testing is common in industries where employers have to handle legal drugs, such as pharmacies, or hospitals. If you want to bring in screenings in your workplace, think very carefully about what you want the screenings to achieve and what you will do with the information that the screenings give you. 

To introduce screenings, you must have invest in specimen collector training to ensure testing is done correctly, safely, and fairly. 

Screenings can be justified in certain jobs, such as for staff who must make safety-critical decisions, like drivers, machinery operators, or pilots. In jobs like these, the misuse of drugs or alcohol could have a terrible impact on the employee, colleagues, members of the public, and the environment. 

If you do decide to go down this route, it’s important to remember:

• Employees must consent to screenings for practical and legal reasons
• Screening alone will not solve problems caused by drug and alcohol misuse and should be only part of your overall health and safety policy
• Screening must be done correctly to make sure that samples cannot be contaminated or tampered with. Testing procedures and analysis must be accurate
• Employees cannot be forced to take a test. However, if they refuse when you as an employer have good grounds for testing, they can face disciplinary action

Support employees with a drug or alcohol problem

When you have assessed the risk level and have put in place a fair policy on drug or alcohol misuse in your place of work, you need to make sure employees are all aware of the policy, understand it, and know about any support that you will offer. 

Training and awareness

You can work to increase awareness by including an explanation of the policy on the misuse of drugs and alcohol as part of your induction process for any new employees. 

Make sure you also brief supervisors and managers so they are clear about:

• How to recognise the signs of drug or alcohol misuse
• The rules of your organization on the misuse of drugs and alcohol
• What they should do if they think that an employee is misusing drugs or alcohol
• What they need to do if an employee tells them that they have a drug or alcohol problem

Support for employees

An employee who has a drug or alcohol problem may approach you help at work if they can feel sure that their struggles with be dealt with in a discreet manner and confidentially. You should also take the time to consider your own legal position if you are given information or evidence that shows an employee’s misuse of drugs has involved them breaking the law while at work. 

Drug and alcohol dependence are recognised as medical problems. A person who is misusing drugs or alcohol has the same rights to confidentiality and support as they would if they were suffering from any other psychological or medical condition. 

If an employee needs help, encourage them to seek help from their GP or an agency that is a specialist in drugs and alcohol. If your business has an occupational health service, the employee could be referred to that. 

You could also offer your employee some time off to give them time to seek expert help. The cost of recruiting and training a new employee can be more than just granting time off, so this can be well worth offering as an option. 

Consider whether you wish to treat drug or alcohol misuse in the workplace as a health concern or a disciplinary matter. Remember that if you let someone go due to the misuse of drugs or alcohol without offering them any kind of help, an employment tribunal could find you guilty of unfair dismissal. However, if their norma work is safety-critical, then it may be wise to move them temporarily to a different role. 

Health advice and information

If your business does not have access to occupational health services, you can still offer support for your employees’ health and wellbeing. You can ensure that there is plenty of information available at work on where they can go to seek advice and help if they are worried about misusing drugs or alcohol. 

As an employer, you have a general duty to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the welfare, health, and safety of your employees. Employees also have a duty to take reasonable care of themselves and anyone who might be affected by their work.