You have discovered that a group of employees are shipping, using and sharing drugs in the workplace. The natural first (and secret) response is to assume that they are self indulgent drug addicts with no regard for their own health or workplace safety. Yet people are complex, and that means the truth is complex also. In many cases, the illicit substance abuse reflects a poor decision on the part of the employees in response to workplace factors the employer is not adequately addressing.
The Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are frequently discussed as being an essential component of an alcohol and drug testing program, but in reality their purpose is to assist employees who need to resolve health and personal issues that are work related. If you think about this carefully, it becomes clear that the EAP should really be named the EEAP for employer-employee assistance plan. In this revised human resource model, the employee intervention requires a two-pronged approach.
First, the employer must evaluate the work environment while offering the employee the opportunity to resolve the issues contributing to the desire to use drugs and/or alcohol. Second, the employee must make an honest effort to also deal with the unresolved personal or work issues. In other words, the EAP is a joint effort and not simply an employer program on paper with employee expectations. It would probably be safe to say that ineffective EAPs have failed to grasp the dual role of the EAP.
The main purpose of the EAP is to restore the employee’s job performance by helping employees resolve or better manage both personal and work related issues that are negatively affecting on-the-job results.1 These issues may involve finances, family or work. Work issues may involve stress, poor management practices, heavy or unreasonable workloads, coworker conflicts and a myriad of other issues. You can address drug or alcohol use in the workplace, but if you don’t address the root cause of the use or addiction nothing will change.
Though EAPs are seen as an integral component of harm minimisation policies, they are only successful if the employer is willing to admit that there might be work environment factors that may be contributing to worker substance abuse. This admission must then be followed up with an action plan that focuses on:
- Identifying the specific factors or issues
- Developing methods for alleviating workplace stresses without impacting productivity
- Forming external and internal connections to resources that support and supplement the action plan
The EAP is sometimes described as a program that addresses employee personal problems in relation to work performance. Yet defining the EAP in this manner limits its effectiveness and comprehensiveness. A quality EAP will address both employer and employee problems that are impacting productivity and the health and safety of employees.
As the Chief Executive Officer of the WorkCover Authority of NSW, Jon Blackwell, pointed out, “Workers affected by drugs or alcohol at work not only jeopardise their own safety, they place their colleagues and others in the workplace at risk…[He] encourages both employers and workers to manage risks associated with drug and alcohol use by adopting a preventative approach.”2 The preventative approach includes employer identification and management of those workplace factors and situations that create non-productive stressful employee conditions.
An employer EAP should not be the equivalent of an emergency response to the detection of employee drug and alcohol use. The employer who swoops into departments with portable drug test equipment like a breathalyser on a random basis will be much more accepted if the purpose of the testing is seen in the larger context of an overall health and safety program that is supportive.
When Broken Hill Pry Ltd (BHP) decided to implement mandatory drug testing at multiple sites, the West Australian Industrial Relations Commission (WAIRC) concluded that a drug policy that is not clearly linked to a “…well-established rehabilitation program is likely to attack the symptoms of drug use and/or abuse rather than addressing the underlying causes. This can result in the removal of the employee from the workplace but not the illicit drug use that may enter the workplace with a replacement employee. Providing for education and rehabilitation in the implementation of a drug testing program reflects a holistic approach to understanding and managing the issue of substance abuse in the workplace. Moreover, such an approach is more likely to be in the long-term interest of employers as it entails identifying the underlying dysfunctions in the workplace and its operation.”3
If you are interested in developing a supportive EAP that addresses its dual nature, Mediscreen at http://mediscreen.net.au/index.php?mod=contact can offer quality experience, knowledge and advice for designing an effective drug and alcohol testing component.
References
1. New South Wales Government. (2007, August 20). Alcohol and drugs in the workplace. Retrieved March 19, 2011, from WorkCover Authority of NSW: http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/aboutus/newsroom/Pages/Alcoholanddrugsintheworkplace.aspx
2. WorkCover Corporation of South Australia. (2001, February). Guidelines for Drugs, Alcohol and the Workplace. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from SafeWork SA: http://www.safework.sa.gov.au/contentPages/docs/resDrugAlcoholGuidelines.pdf
3. Holland, P. (2005, July). The changing focus in Australia: involving an EAP and mandating referral, treatment and rehabilitation were key to the approval of a drug testing program proposed by one of Australia’s largest employers. Retrieved March 18, 2011, from BNET – Health Publications: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PLP/is_3_35/ai_n17210393/?tag=content;col1
