illegal substance
njjel
1,235 Posts
As an HR manager what responsibility do we have if we have become aware that an employee is using an illegal substance after work hours? We have no random drug testing procedures or for cause for that matter.
Comments
Go through this mental exercise for us: Assume what you have here to be gospel. Now assume later in the week you have an industrial accident caused by or contributed to by this individual. A death or amputation results or an eye is put out. Now imagine the lawsuit that might follow and picture yourself at the deposition saying, "Sure I knew it. But since we don't have a policy, I didn't feel I had any obligation to do anything. But I am sorry Henry's dead."
I don't know how large your company is, but the odds are that someday the problem will arise.
Mary's been to the water cooler at least 8 times. Now she's disappeared into the ladies room. She's been in there at least 40 minutes. You finally go to check on her and she's passed out in the stall, dead to the world. Two of you clean up the vomit and the ambulance comes at your request. 4 hours later you learn her stomach was pumped and she's overdosed on the drug you knew she was using recreationally. She also cracked her skull when she hit the tile floor. Wonder what the comp cost will be?
or
Mary's left for lunch. So have six others on the same lunch schedule. All of them have a one hour lunch. Four of the six others will return. Mary will not and the other two will not because on the way to their car to go to lunch together, Mary ran them down and sped out of the parking lot. Now she's in jail, shaking like a leaf and doesn't even remember being at work this morning. Your trying to decide which family to visit first.
I like the analogy about the fire drills. Don't wait for something to happen before your company takes action. If nothing else ask your company attorney to recommend something to you.
I can't think of a single illegal drug or prescription narcotic, which, if abused, is out of the human system the next morning.
Rather than looking to Don to come up with scenarios justifying the need to be responsible, you should think of ones that would match your companies business. Don't get me wrong, Don has done a good job of illustrating a couple of possibilities, and the main thing to keep in mind is the picture of yourself on the witness stand confessing your prior knowledge of the illegal substance use that may have contributed to the accidental injury, death, etc.
It is not comfortable to be placed in a situation that makes you think of these kinds of things, but it comes with the territory of being in HR and in management. What would your advice be to another supervisor who came to you with the scenario you described? Is it easier to advise others to do the right thing than it is to do it for yourself?
Get that drug policy in place and work in the reasonable suspicion testing criteria. Then enforce it. It will save you money in the long run. By the way, it is good for the EEs if you have an EAP program that can step in as necessary.
"The right thing to do is usually the hardest thing to do." I am paraphrasing a quote here and I do not know who to attribute it to, but it is more often true than not.
I can sense your struggle with this issue by the questions you have raised. Good luck, I hope you win the fight.
It was not my intent to offend you or suggest you were misusing this forum.
I agree that the forum is a great place to seek advice and counsel, and many contributors (like Don D) have a depth and breadth of experience that make their words of wisdom particularly relevant.
Your initial post asked what level of responsibility you had and early responses said none, absent evidence of effects at work. I disagree with that position and believe all management levels have varying degrees of higher duty, especially HR.
I sensed that you were looking for reasons to ignore the off-work substance abuse because of the lack of glaring evidence of an at-work performance problem and because you were not in a manufacturing environment, you did not see the safety of the EEs as being an issue. As illustrated by Don's second set of possibilities, safety can still be an issue in an office setting.
If you were just looking for guidance in the absence of a policy, then I misread your responses and humbly apologize.
Get a drug policy written and make it known to all employees. Make arrangements with a local clinic or other drug testing center to take your employees whenever you send them. And make him one of your first 'random' testings.
Good luck.
You did good until your last statement. "make him one of your first random selection", one can not pick and choose those to be tested under the random selection model. One chosen for testing by a supervisory chain must have reasonable cause, "reasonable cause" can be association with known culture, or "mood changes", unusual human behavior, etc. Don't destroy the power of your policy with a "chosen random selection", that fish want swim.
PORK
You have a two-part issue:
1. You most certainly need a drug policy in place so that you can deal with drug use that affects your workplace.
2. I'll probably take some heat for this but I don't think that an ordinary employee's private actions away from work are anyone's business but his or her own. Of course, I'm not referring to a company official who embarrasses his company in public but only to the personal actions most of us take in private. I too would like to know how you came into your knowledge of this person's drug use. If you have a personal relationship with the individual then speak to her personally and express your concerns. If you have issues with her performance, deal with those. All the rest of it sounds very "Big Brother is watching you" to me.
Good Luck,
Uncas