Q: A previously dependable employee has recently been arriving late, skipping out early, appears distracted at times, a bit disheveled, and last week I found him dozing at his desk. When asked, he muttered something like “none of your business, it’s a personal matter … ,” and stormed off without further explanation. I’m thinking maybe it is time for a drug test. Would that be permissible under this situation?
A: Possibly, but you should initially step back and ask whether the purpose of an intervention regarding an employee who appears ‘unfit for duty’ is to find cause to terminate, or to steer the individual to seek/accept some assistance in order to get back in track as a productive employee.
If the former, the best path may be to skip the drug test, document the performance shortcomings, and terminate for failure to meet job requirements.
Otherwise, the employee may pass the drug test because the unacceptable conduct may not be a consequence of substance abuse, but you are still faced with a nonperforming employee who appears unfit for duty.
A number of very real possible explanations for the conduct described in your question above is that the employee has marital problems, financial stress (gambling, bankruptcy, working second job), childcare, parental eldercare difficulties, or a myriad of other personal issues all of which could result in lack of sleep, short tempered distractedness, attendance problems.
Management still has an employee who is not meeting job requirements, not due to drug use, and needs to take action.
On the other hand, if your purpose is to determine how best to get the employee back on track as a productive worker, a drug test may be an effective tool to confirm the substance abuse as a factor related to the unacceptable performance.
A positive drug test result may be the critical piece of data to break through the denial often associated with chemical dependency, prompting the employee to acknowledge the reality of their problem and pursue treatment.
But, you must be confident that you meet state law requirements before directing your employee to submit to a drug test.
Connecticut’s drug test law defines a relatively narrow circumstance in which an employee may be required to provide a urine specimen for purposes of a ‘reasonable suspicion’ or ‘for cause’ drug test.
An employer must have “reasonable suspicion that the employee is under the influence of drugs or alcohol which adversely affects or could adversely affect such employee’s job performance.”
Over the years, court cases have provided more detail on this somewhat subjective definition of ‘reasonable cause’, listing a variety of performance, behavioral and physical signs indicative of impairment, as well as requiring that managers making such a determination have had some prior training on the subject of workplace substance abuse.
The above scenario is typical of questions that supervisors ask EAP professionals according to George “Bud” Wassell the director of Solutions EAP, based in Middletown.
If you think about it, work is the very last place you would want to know about a serious issue such as alcohol or drug addiction, or other behaviors like gambling that may be out of control. And if they are at the out-of-control stage the employee is doing their best to keep things together, but it will inevitably spill over into the workplace.
So how does one know when to take action and what action to take? Most supervisors tend to avoid these type of discussions.
If you find yourself making excuses for the employee such as, “They’re just going through some hard times … ”, you’re just putting off the inevitable. Now is the time to learn strategies to help individual employees and ways to set up a drug-free environment in your place of work.
Adapted and reprinted from CBIA News with permission from the Connecticut Business & Industry Association.
Training Sessions Offer Some Answers
CBIA is presenting a series of free training sessions on Drugs @ Work, in collaboration with Solutions, a long-term provider of Employee Assistance Programs and related services. The first training is on Dec. 7 at The Crowne Plaza in Cromwell. Sessions are planned for Jan. 18 in North Haven and Feb. 9 in Waterbury. These sessions are funded by a Small Business Administration grant to assist small businesses in developing effective workplace strategies to reduce substance abuse in the workplace, and among employees’ families. For more information, contact CBIA’s Mark Soycher at (860) 244-1138 or mark.soycher@cbia.com. You can register online at www.solutions-eap.com or call Solutions at 1-800-526-3485.
