Drug Test?

Kymm

Ok..here's the scenario... our employee didn't show up at a customers site this morning... when we called him at home, he answered "groggy" and said he just woke up. Apparently, he also sounded extremely "out of it" and the supervisor asked him if he was "under the influence".. he responded "yes..that he had relapsed and started crying." Supervisor told him he would get back to him and then called me. My thoughts.. we would call him back - if he brings up the fact that he wants a leave to get rehab, we will accomodate him. However, if we can't get a hold of him and he shows up to go to work tomorrow, I would like to take him to our clinic for a "reasonable suspicion" drug test. I would say that having an employee tell us that he was under the influence (even though he was at home that day) it's pretty safe to assume that the drug would still be in his system the following day - wouldn't that fall under the "rules" to demand a "reasonable suspicion" test? I will say that we are in CA as well. (Drug-Free Workplace.. signed policy statements from employees regarding the testing, etc.) Not that it matters but we also do random drug testing for the safety sensitive employees (which he is one.)

marc

I will readily admit to not having a great deal of depth with respect to drug testing do's and don'ts. That said, I believe some drugs stay in the system significantly longer than others and that the urine test will give different results than testing the hair on the back of your neck. That being true, the sooner you test, the more likely the tests will show the drugs in the system. I know it is probably too late in the day, but I would not even give the EE a chance to show up at the clients, I would have him report to the office first thing and escort him to the test site. The admission over the phone sounds like a good enough reason, make sure the supervisor documents the conversation.

Forumites with more experience in this area can give you more specific input.

Good luck.

TN HR

Food for thought......Have plans B and C ready. What if his drug of choice is alcohol? How will you detect it 24 hours later?

LindaS

Do you have an attendance policy in place? If so what does it state that you should do for this absence? Maybe I'm way off base but I don't feel that a drug test is appropriate for a couple of reasons...

1) The employee was not at work and did not exhibit any strange behavior (at least according to your post).

2) Your post didn't state what the employee "relapsed" on and if it was alcohol, it won't be in their system tomorrow anyway.

I would treat this situation the same as any other employee who missed work and discipline appropriately. I would NOT demand a screening tomorrow unless the employee reports to work "under the influence". At this point you are basically stating that the employee has to account for his behavior out of work.

Now if the employee comes to you and requests some time off to attend rehab you can look at accomodating that and requiring the proper documentation but outside of that, treat it as simply a discipline issue.