Master Builders of Iowa

Recent news articles about drugs in Iowa drive home a growing concern with the level of drug use in our pastoral little state. Who would have thought you would read about a college president growing his own pot in his garage, his family distributing pot in local high schools, and his family has a “potluck” dinner every week? Who would have thought that HBO would develop a film on meth use and its growing impact and use Iowans as the examples of the problem?

In Iowa we try to think the drug problems are in the big cities, but we have to face the facts. Drug use, especially meth use, is a problem that transcends into our work force. The cost of ignoring these facts can be high. Drug use costs employers because of increased absenteeism, decreased production, increased job injuries, and increased risk of job fatalities. You also need to concern yourself with liability for ignoring the drug problem, which leads to damage to others in the work force. What more do you need to start an aggressive program to rid your company of these problems?

The first step is to try to avoid the problem as you hire. You have the right to establish drug testing for new hires. Make sure your testing practices are consistent with the law and get started. You will soon find that your company will get a reputation that chases away the users. You have to decide as a policy how long if ever a flunked applicant must wait to retest. A new testing kit is available that let you test in the office. This saves on clinic cost, paying for someone to go to a clinic and waiting for a result. If the test is clean the worker can go right to work; if it’s not clean you need to go through the normal testing protocol to comply with the law.

The next step is to decide if you want to cleanse your work force of users. You can do accident testing to defend work comp. claims, you can test for cause and you can do random testing. Once you embark on a program to test your work force you need to review how your insurance program deals with recovery programs, understand what the law requires as assistance in recovery and review your companies policy’s regarding the level of assistance the company will provide. You will also need to clarify how long the company will go with a recovering user and any occasional slips along the way. A clear policy on this issue is good for the company and the recovering user. Another process is to set up an employee assistance program that provides for counseling on an anonymous basis. With this program in place, if you see signs that a member of the workforce may be a user, you have a way to attack the issue before it gets to a problem level.

We are all very naïve about how to detect a user before a test catches them. There are a lot of signs that will help. Look at the employee’s social activities. Who are their friends; have family issues developed; are money issues appearing; are there mood swings from euphoria to depression; or is a new level of paranoia surfacing? Any of these should raise your level of concern.

Another set of signals deal with the employee’s appearance. Has there been a weight change; has a tired or strung-out appearance started to show up; have the dress patterns changed to a disheveled nature; are red eyes frequently noticed; is sunglass usage more utilized; are there unusual sweating and nervous situations; or are the moods toward others becoming nervous and intolerant?

The last set of warning signs come from the employee’s own job performance. Has the level of productivity changed; has the quality of work changed; has tardiness and absenteeism increased; is Friday or Monday a typical day off; have lies about job failures become more frequent; has the work energy become sporadic; and has the tendency for reclusive behavior during time off started to appear?

The plight of the user is terrible. They don’t want to ruin their life, but the control of addiction is tough to beat. They don’t want to lie and deceive but the drive for the next high is in control. The victims of the user’s plight are frustrated because they cannot control or cure the problem. The best advice we can give is for the HR people to get good training in addiction areas and to develop an expert to guide you and the user’s family through these issues. This process will also include exploring the recovery programs in your area and getting an awareness of what they provide for assistance.

The more you know, the quicker you will understand there is no quick fix. There are a lot of failures, no single program fits all, sometimes there is a bad outcome as not every user can beat the addiction and sometimes the best thing you can do is protect your company and coworkers until the user finds the bottom and their own personal solution. The one thing you cannot do is look the other way and pretend this problem doesn’t happen in Iowa.