Part 2 of a 2 part series
In Part 1 of this series on employee drug testing, I suggested that a manager/business owner should ask this question: Notwithstanding all the positive attributes that contribute toward the success of my enterprise, am I sabotaging myself elsewhere?
So, without sounding like a public service announcement, drug abuse is a huge problem everywhere. An enormous percentage of the work force ingests mood-altering substances and virtually all of these substances fog the thought process. We always go back to the raw mechanics and that means a business is a system of systems, and in the strictest mechanical sense – and at the risk of political incorrectness and/or dehumanizing – the people who operate the business are systems, too. Marijuana, amphetamines, barbiturates, opiates etc. inhibit the thinking process of people-systems, and an inhibited thinking process is not efficient.
If the goal is high efficiency, a great product or service, and enough profitability to take good care of employees and stock holders – and if people are the center of the business endeavor, which of course they are – why wouldn’t management insure that employees have clear heads? I believe this question has a number of answers:
- Management is in denial of the reality of a drug problem within the culture and therefore within the business. This is a matter of management not paying attention
- Management has some kind of politically-correct notion that what someone ingests into their body is a human right and therefore any questions about this are an invasion of privacy. Maybe it is a human right but management has the human right to not have to hire drug abusers.
- By performing drug tests on the entire staff, management is afraid of the loss of a major portion of that staff because of multiple positive test results. They are concerned that there will be no one to do the work the day after the drug testing. There is a good chance this is true.
- Probably this is the most prevalent reason: Management isn’t seeing the business entity as a collection of linear operating systems and therefore has not taken the entity apart piece by piece to analyze the components, the most important of which are the people-systems who operate the enterprise.
Whatever the reasoning or non-reasoning, here’s the mechanical fact: If the primary system is to operate at peak efficiency, all sub-systems of that primary system must operate at peak efficiency. For too many businesses it is an incredible oversight to neglect and ignore the efficiency of the most important business sub-systems that exist: the people who do the work.
The people who work at Centratel can think. Do they drag bad moods and problems to work? Of course they do, but they deal with their problems quietly, straight-up and with backbone. They deal with it. My partner and I have enormous respect for our employees, not just for the near flawless work they do, but because they have elected to march through life unadulterated and unafraid. They do what they have to do for themselves and, no question, this is a very good thing for Centratel. Forgive the worn out parlance, but it’s a win-win.
With a big emphasis on monthly bonuses for personal performance, we pay our excellent employees very well and so they get very good at what they do and they stay a long time.
I’ll cover things more thoroughly in our November Boot Camp, but here are the bare essentials of how we manage drug testing at Centratel:
- When we advertise for a position on the internet, it is stated plainly that drug testing will be done. From our internet job posting: “…an initial drug screening test and subsequent random tests are given. If you use illegal drugs and somehow get through initial testing, your tenure with Centratel will be short as we drug test frequently and unannounced.
- We use an in-house saliva test. It’s about $11.00 per test
- We do unannounced tests on select groups, three to six times per year. The groups? It could be everyone in the office, those who started work within the last 90 days, those with names within a certain alphabetical order, etc.
- If someone tests positive, we verify the positive test with a second screening at a local urgent care facility. If that test comes back positive there is no recourse: the individual loses his or her job. For the employee, the risk/reward ratio is not favorable and the end-result is that we almost never terminate employment because of a positive drug screening.
There’s much more, of course, but the over-arching thought process that led us to our enthusiasm for drug testing is the simple-mechanics perspective of the Work the System methodology. We see everything as a system, including the overall business….and this obviously includes the thinking process of each of our employees.
Know this: There are LOTS of terrific people out there who, in exchange for great wages and great working conditions, will work hard, be loyal and give 100%.
So, the secret of our success is in not allowing our best efforts to be sabotaged. By screening out fuzzy-thinkers, we’re left with clear thinking straight-shooters who operate the machinery of the business with super efficiency.
(Next Post: “Free”)
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
My problem with (I won’t say opposition to) drug testing is that it is a tool, and like any tool must be used properly in the right context to be effective. Obviously Sam thinks it’s a good tool for him and I won’t argue with that. But let me examine it to help see if it’s a good tool in every situation.
Sam’s problem was to find a workforce that could think on the job unimpaired and was stable – not flighty. His words. I know several people (I’m not one of them for the record) who enjoy marijuana and are not at all flighty and have jobs that require them to think clearly and they are successful and stable in those jobs. One I’m thinking of is a professional with an advanced degree. Another owns his own business.
Secondly, I also know several people who are flighty and don’t use drugs – or at least not the kind that show up on an $11 drug test.
Thirdly, I know people whose thinking is impaired by things that have nothing to do with drug use – fatigue or illness for examples, or alcohol which may not be what Sam is testing for.
In addition, drug tests don’t distinguish between the time of use and the time of impairment. Someone who gets high on a Friday night, is probably not impaired on a Monday or Tuesday when the test comes up positive.
I would submit that drug testing does not directly measure the desired results (stability and the ability to think on the job). It measures something that in some populations correlates with those results – and in Sam’s situation the correlation seems to be high.
So my problem with drug testing is that when it’s used in situations where the correlation between what you want and what you test is low, you may eliminate a large population of good workers and make it harder to find and keep a good workforce.
Do you screen your employees for alcohol use?
Glenn: No, we don’t screen for this but probably we should. It’s something we are considering. Our premise: Having a hangover is one thing but handling medical emergencies while under the direct influence is another.
John: Thanks for the comment and I appreciate your balanced and understanding stance.
Here’s my response: In a mechanical sense, taking mind-altering substances can’t enhance overall the function of the brain which is not designed to require additional chemical inducement (yes, I’ll get an argument from anti-depressant and amphetamine enthusiasts, that these drugs DO increase effectiveness).
I come to my general conclusions about the negative effects of drugs from my own experience with them, from many years of experience with staff, and from the preponderance of popular, scientific and medical literature. Re the subjective analysis of what constitutes flighty and what does not: That’s a tought one. It’s simply my experience that habitual users of marijuanna tend to have lower levels of foucs and, yes, tend to be flighty. Individual situations may vary! And, yes, there are some non-durg users out there who maybe should be on some kind of medication! So, I am not entirely dogmatic about it, but for my business must have a black-and-white decison-making tool and the drug testing is just that. Being subjective about this will, in fact, not be fair to anyone.
Here’s some additional thought re my standpoint, although not addressed in your comments: I take the libertarian standpoint that what one does with one’s self is private. However (and here’s the crux of the question of personal rights): what I do with my business is private, too. Like my body, I own it — it’s mine — and I have the right to hire non–drug users if I believe they can’t function to the level of non-drug users.
I also believe that the after-effects of drugs diminish effectiveness, too.
So, in the end I go back to my major premise (and it does dovetail a bit with your thoughts regarding the elimination of a large portion of possible employees): There is a huge number of people who chose to guide their states of minds with drugs and it does present a problem in assembling a stable and long-term staff, especially for certain occupations.
How about pregnant women? They often are moody, and may not stick with a job. Perhaps you should demand a pregnancy test of any women under 50 or so who apply — you can use the same pee cup.
Being in Oregon, do you allow a doctor’s note for medical marijuana use, or do you exclude those people on the basis that they may be fuzzy-headed? Is it about submissiveness, or is it about cognition? Which is more responsible for your low turnover?
I’m a second generation ACLU member, and I think pot smoking has no more influence on character than cigarettes (which in my opinion are more disruptive to workflow and health care costs) or, God knows, alcohol consumption — which is legal and nearly sanctioned, even though the “three martini lunch” is less glibly talked about.
The idea that you would drug test, but accept smokers and drinkers, indicates to me that you are using a tool inappropriately, for a collateral result. It may get you a dependable workforce because you’ll weed out (no pun intended) the unconventional thinkers, and you’ll get more people who toe the line to authority. Good on you.
I’m not sure it will get you “out of the box” solutions, but your business doesn’t look like it needs those as much as you need phone center workers who can handle a minor variation of scripting, and show up like clockwork.
Your candidate pool with still include lushes and people on their way to death by emphysema, wife beaters, and all sorts of folks you might not enjoy as employees.
Testing is not a silver bullet, but it makes for an iron shackle on a social standards basis.
Mind you, my company is working on non-drug euphorics to present an option to get people *off* all these substances — but to me that means giving people more choice, not inequitably condemning the choices they make.
The work place should be about function, and what you do on your own time should be your own.
Thank you Shava. As an ACLU member and per the thrust of your comments, I see you are concerned with people’s rights. So am I. Let’s look at the various individual’s rights, one by one.
First, my rights: As an employer I have the right to hire anyone I want. To take your reasoning out to a logical conclusion, I should be forced to hire anyone who walks in off the street. My method of selecting employees is MY right, as long as we don’t violate the job applicant’s personal rights – and I am very, very careful that we don’t.
Second, the stoned employee’s rights: Is it OK for an employee to be less than 100% effective, and in fact possibly dangerously inadequate, because they’re high? Maybe, per some twisted legal argument, but for sure it’s my right to show them the door or, better yet, spot them before they begin employment.
Third: potential employees. They know that we do drug testing and they can opt of applying for a position (and many potential applicants do just that). They have a right to not apply for the job.
Fourth: I owe it to my 1,000 clients to provide them unadulterated processing of their emergency calls and therefore it’s my job to select the clearest-thinking people available. My clients pay us good money and it’s their right to expect people who perform at 100%. I won’t even go into the liability issues that would ensue if I were to allow a stoned employee to literally cause someone to die. Obviously the solution is to not have stoned employees.
Fifth, my current employees have rights too, and they much prefer that they don’t have to deal with the scattered thinking and emotional ups and downs of a drug using co-worker. We are all in the business together, all try to pull 100%, and all endeavor to show up clear headed in order to support each other the best we can.
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