Content
For any current employee who is alcoholic against whom employment-related actions are taken for performance or conduct reasons. At certain times it may become necessary for human resources or management to contact local law enforcement following a report on drugs and alcohol in the workplace. If drugs are found at your place of business or identified on an employee, law enforcement should be contacted to prevent potential liability issues, since the illegal substances are at a place of work. If you work at a company that has its own security department, contact security and allow its staff to contact the police. Express Corp., 133 F.3d 137 (1st Cir. 1998), the court held that the employer was not required to provide a second leave of absence to an employee for substance abuse treatment. The court noted, It is one thing to say that further treatment made medical sense, and quite another to say that the law required the company to retain through a succession of efforts.
- Pay attention to your co-worker’s behavior at work so that you can have substantial evidence when you go to make a complaint, and keep a document of incidents.
- If your employer has a drug- and alcohol-free workplace policy, this document will describe your reporting responsibilities and guide how you handle making a report of drugs found in the workplace or drug abuse on the job.
- The signs of addiction may be difficult to spot at first, but if drugs are a common topic of discussion, there may be more going on than meets the eye.
- Depending on the steps your employer uses to investigate and act on workplace drug abuse, your involvement in the reporting process may not end with a conversation with HR or management.
- The EEOC has held that federal employers are no longer required to provide the reasonable accommodation of firm choice under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act.
And when it comes to consequences, that may be employees’ best bet. Companies don’t seem to care if drug use is legal or illicit – if it goes against their policies, discussing drug use in the office can lead to being fired. However, the potential consequences weren’t the main reason employees strayed from discussing drugs. Rather, 58% simply considered it inappropriate and 45% didn’t like telling co-workers personal details about their lives. Forty-three percent of employees kept the negative consequences in mind when deciding what topics were too taboo for the workplace.
Subscribe For Free Resources
It’s initiated either by the employee’s request for assistance or the employer’s inquiry into behaviors that are unsuitable in the workplace. You may want to afford employees every reasonable means for overcoming their substance dependency. https://ecosoberhouse.com/ You can’t ignore a disclosure once the employee admits to having an alcohol or drug problem. Even if an employee is convicted of a drug offence, “the employer would still have to prove that dismissal was justified”, says Palmer.
They could hurt themselves or someone else by accident if they are operating heavy machinery or have a job with a lot of responsibility like a police officer, lawyer, teacher, etc. You also may have noticed that your coworker has been missing a lot of shifts lately. They could either be getting signs of drug use high at home or they are too insecure to show up at work in fear that others will know about their drug use by their appearance. Overall, the most important thing to remember when you have to speak to your employer about an upcoming rehab program is that you are actively trying to get healthy.
Handling Legal Issues
Employers must also provide reasonable accommodations when necessary to enable people with a disability to perform their job duties. They also have to maintain confidentiality about any medical-related information they receive or discover about a job applicant or employee. This includes any information pertaining to any substance use disorder. Entering treatment for drug or alcohol use is a big step, and it can be a stressful one when you have a job.
An employee’s momentary lapse of attention can result in significant consequences, from reduced productivity to personal injury, property damage or even death. In small business, oftentimes, a change in just one employee’s behavior can be highly noticeable, and have massive impacts on overall productivity or revenue. However, that one employee may have been a cornerstone of the business for years. Loyal employees in small business are crucial, and often small business teams become like family. So long as no irreversible, cataclysmic errors were made, one approach employers may consider is talking to an employee that may have a substance abuse issue to try to understand what is going on. The Family and Medical Leave Act (PL 103-3) applies to all public agencies and to private employers with more than 50 workers.
