study (69%) had programs in place for seven (7) years or more (see Figure 4). This suggests that those companies who started drug testing programs stayed with the programs for one reason or another. Outside this study when asked why com- panies have drug testing programs some say it insures a better quality of worker, less absenteeism and fewer accidents. Although difficult to quantify, this study confirms the perceived benefits of main- taining a drug testing program among human resource professionals respond- ing to this study. When asked if only pre-employment
testing was done prior to hiring an individual a majority (57%) reported they test for all job candidates with a slight increase in 2011 vs. 2010. The remaining question indicated a decrease in testing in 2011 vs. 2010 perhaps due to the slowdown in the economy. There
was a reported decrease in selected can- didates 17% to 10% or a 41% decrease, when required by state law dropped from 7% in 2010 to 4% in 2011 or a 42% decrease and those organizations not testing at all rose from 21% in 2010 to 29% in 2011, an increase of 38% decid- ing not to drug test. Although it was clear that human
resource professionals from large organizations, (those with greater than 2,500 employees), reported that 71% had pre-employment drug testing programs only 51% of human resource profession- als from the government sector reported using pre-employment drug testing for all job candidates (see Figure 6). As all Federal government and most state and local governments have drug testing requirements this report seems low and may simply be a reflection of not know- ing the policy, or due to some confusion as to whether this question should have been phrased to reflect safety sensitive positions. Again we included those hu- man resource professionals not involved with the drug testing policy or program implementation and this may simply be an artifact of that inclusion. Human resource professionals
responding to the types of post-employ- ment testing conducted by their organi- zations reported that post accident and random testing were the most unchanged from 2010 to 2011 along with follow up testing. Post accident testing is required under many government and private sector programs and random testing has been shown to be the greatest deterrent of drug abuse on the job (11, 12, 13). This gives employees a reason to “just say no” as employees do not know when they will be asked to provide a specimen for drug testing. It is interesting to note that reasonable suspicion testing dropped precipitously from 80% 2010 to 35% in 2011. This could be a result of employees knowing there is a reasonable suspicion
14 datia focus spring 2012
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62