High
visibility health checksHigh
visibility health checks
Most organisations, irrespective of sector, can expect at some time to have to tackle the problem of alcohol and drug misuse. Here we find out about the benefits of establishing a company policy to deal with such an event and the value of highly visible searches
According to estimates, drug and alcohol misuse costs industry in the region of £800 million per year. Furthermore, in addition to the losses incurred by businesses the health, safety and welfare of staff are also under threat from those employees with dependencies and addictions. It is therefore essential that every company, whatever its size, has a plan in place as part of its duty of care programme to monitor workers and deal with any situations that arise.
In 2002 the Chartered Management Institute developed a guide, “Drugs and Alcohol in the Workplace – Guidance for Managers”, which clearly set out the plan of action for UK companies. It says that “Drug and alcohol misuse should be seen as a health problem and the employee should be supported as far as possible, with disciplinary action being used only as the last resort”. Indeed, driving drugs and alcohol misuse out of the organisation rather than the people is a fundamental part of a good policy.
But does your company have a good policy established for dealing with alcohol and drug misuse? According to research by the Chartered Management Institute 22% of managers surveyed admitted that they were unaware of what their policy involved. A point that John Franklin-Webb of GIS, part of the Templewood Security Group, finds worrying.
“Most large organisations tend to pay lip service to a drug and alcohol policy, or simply ignore the issue,” he says. “It has been bred out of the intolerance we have developed to people working under the influence of alcohol in and around the premises. What many people have done is simple add drugs to the alcohol policy to say that they do not tolerate the use of drugs as well as alcohol in or around the premises.”
“Most large organisations tend to pay lip service to a drug and alcohol policy, or simply ignore the issue”
Companies may often feel that this has served the purpose however in John’s experience of organising drug searches with dogs including such sensitive locations as schools, the only time when managers start to look at these policies in more detail is when they have an incident or experience a marked decline in performance which is often too late, as the damage may have already been done.
“We are finding that more and more companies are calling us with problems and when I ask to see their alcohol and drugs policy they don’t have one,” says John. “Consequently there are measures that can be taken, but the reality is what do you do, jumping from one piece of employment legislation to the next because the situation has not been made clear from the off.”
A
common business scenario for drug searches is a call centre where there are
large numbers of staff. Companies may have received statements regarding an
employee from colleagues who have noticed a decline in performance in their
co-worker - so then dogs can be used to turn over an office or vehicle to
establish any drug presence.
“In reality you need to get into the building and be seen to be there,” says John. “We recently put a team of dogs into an office where there was a thousand desks and we were able to identify six workstations as positive for drugs. This upheld the accusations that had been made that prompted our visit.”
But does a drug search infringe anybody’s civil liberties or human rights as is the cry from the (usually) guilty parties these days? No, because part of a good drugs and alcohol misuse policy operated by responsible employers involves informing staff of its enforcement in the first place.
According to John Franklin-Webb, “We insist that our clients make their staff aware of their policy and that they also use our involvement as a deterrent because we can arrive at any time. Sometimes we will visit when the premises are empty but a highly visible visit is always the best deterrent. All employers have to do is inform staff that from time to time there will be a drug search with dogs taking place. This stops anyone claiming that they were unaware and that as a result their human rights have been violated or any such outcry and also makes it a real threat to anyone considering bringing something illegal into the workplace.”
He continues, “When we enter a building, we don’t know who the individual under suspicion is (if there is one) so we go in ‘cold’ and cannot be accused of influencing the situation – we would never target just one desk or vehicle either, it has to be a full sweep. If you consider that if you have a call centre of up to a thousand people it is a good marketplace for selling drugs, especially and on the last Friday in the month when there is more money available, this type of tactic among others has proven to be an ideal method of operation and a good time to make an unannounced visit.”
With regard to employment law, consultation with staff is very important and the other factor is always to make sure that when a positive search result turns up that the employer is able to provide background information to the support services and treatment facilities that are available to help people deal with any drug related problems that they may have.
“It’s all well and good to identify somebody as having a drug problem but you don’t want to drive them out of their job and put them on the street,” says John. “For example, a typical application for us would be where there have been two or three accusations made to a manager about a member of staff who has had a noticeable change in their performance and demeanour. We would then go in and search the building and a number of vehicles and if we identify a particular desk or office as being suspect we can then advise the company that they have enough evidence to deal with the situation legally and recommend that they take a hair test of the individual. This would show up to a month of drug misuse per cm of sample taken and can identify the specific drug involved. We consider a sample of up to six months is reasonable under the circumstances, prior to that any misuse is a matter for the individual. It is therefore crucial that companies act swiftly having identified an individual. It is then up to the company to decide if they want to take it further once presented them with the evidence.”
“We must never forget however that drug misuse is still largely in the minority and we mustn’t get paranoid about this”
This is why a drug and alcohol policy is so important because companies need to lay out the three or four stages of dealing with misuse and then make sure that all employees are aware of this. Managers need a uniform sequence of events in order to properly enforce a policy.
“We must never forget however that drug misuse is still largely in the minority and we mustn’t get paranoid about this,” reminds John. “But with that said if you do believe that there is an employee with a drug problem then you have a duty of care to do something about it and if that member of staff is in a safety sensitive role, for example in construction, or possibly driving a company vehicle then they are a danger to other people as well as themselves.”
As an employer you need to have a structure in place to deal with accusations of drug taking/dealing and have a number of methods including the ability to search established from the start.
“After all, who would want to work alongside somebody with a drug problem?” asks John. “If your manager had been taking drugs it is quite likely that he would have a very short temper and not be a nice person to work for. In addition, someone that has a drug habit needs to maintain it and will need money to do so. If they are in a situation where they can defraud a company or have access to cash, then this is what they are going to do.”
Those with drug dependencies are a prime target for blackmail especially if they have access to sensitive information - a dealer can threaten them with exposure or stop supplying them if they do not provide private information. And with all of the news these days surrounding those in call centres selling credit card details etc to third parties, it is essential to remove any temptation for criminals to exploit the situation.
According to data from the Chartered Management Institute, while the signs for alcohol misuse are familiar to most managers, a large proportion are not confident that they would recognise the signs of drug misuse. So it would be wise for everyone involved that all UK businesses take another look at their policies for dealing with drug dependencies and consider the role that high visibility searches can have on reducing the risk of drug-related events or the £800 million per year statistic will only continue to rise.