8.Pre-Employment Drug Testing
Pre employment drug testing is extremely important for any organization. Verification of employee's background is always considered as essential of assurance in the hiring process. Employee drug testing programs protects the health and safety of all employees. This testing proves to be an efficient method of managing drug abuse. It is a valuable tool to acquire positive employee relations, delivering significant cost savings, and providing corporations with a competitive advantage.
The drug abuse remedies can be done in rehabilitation centers and curing centers. Thus, drug testing should be conducted in many places to examine the levels of drug usage. The drug abuse is raising many problems that are directly causing employee turnover, tardiness, absenteeism, theft, turnover, attitude problems, deceased productivity, crime and violence.
How the test is conducted?
Usually, drug testing is conducted by sending the candidate to a collection site, where a urine sample is obtained. This sample will be sent to a certified laboratory for analysis and results are available within 24 hours. There are instant test kits on the market, which are similar to home pregnancy tests. It involves the employer to manipulate a urine sample. Although these tests are considered accurate for immediate screening, they are useless in the event of a positive result, since that requires laboratory confirmation and retention of a sample for retesting by the subject. Moreover, they are much expensive then laboratory tests.
What is tested?
Usually, employers utilize the standard five-panel test, consisting of Marijuana, Cocaine, PCP, Opiates and Amphetamine. Few may use a ten-panel test, which includes prescription substances that are used and possessed legally. Employers can also test for alcohol. Virtually all drugs stay in the system for 2-4 days. For regular drug users, such results can be detected for up to 14 days and sometimes even more days. If the test is conducted through hair, then drugs can be detected for about 3 months. To avoid the obstacles from second hand marijuana smoke, many labs have set a higher threshold before reporting THC in the system.
What happens if there is a positive test or abnormal test?
Laboratory testing has an extensive process to confirm a positive test, before reporting. Many drug testing programs employ a physician called Medical Review Officer (MRO) to examine all test results. In certain cases, the test may be negative, but shows an abnormal result like, “low creatine level”. This denotes that the candidate have consumed excessive water or any alternative to dilute the sample. Though the test confirms the positive result, the program has the right to re-test the sample for their preference. For this purpose, the positive resulted test samples are retained.
The Pre-employment Drug Testing facilitates many employers to detect drug abuse among their employees, while screening them.
