Substance Abuse Awareness at Workplace: Our Response to Drug and Alcohol Use by Regular Employees and Safety-Sensitive Employees

Why Should You Attend:

In these stressful and uncertain times, it's no surprise more and more employees are abusing alcohol, illegal drugs, medical marijuana, and pain medicine prescriptions. What starts out at home often crosses over to the workplace.

Substance abuse in the workplace has become much more secretive, especially as employees evolve away from illegal drugs and more toward prescription pain narcotics. If your organization employs safety-sensitive employees, you need to know the legally-mandated requirements for how and when to test them.

This session will discuss the new realities of "reasonable suspicion" or "for-cause testing;" medical marijuana concerns; the testing and returns to work process; and how to have that crucial conversation with employees suspected of being impaired at work.

Learning Objectives:

• Truth About Employee Drug and Alcohol Use
• The Workplace Substance Abuse Prevention Equation
• Defining Our Terms
• Drug Impacts on the Body
• Substance Abuse Stages
• Recognizing Performance and Behavioral Changes at Work
• The Supervisor’s Care-fronting Conversation
• The For-Cause or Reasonable Suspicion Testing Process
• Employees and Medical Marijuana Cards
• S.H.O.C.A.D.I.Ds: Stimulants, Hallucinogens, Opiates, Cannabis, Alcohol, Depressants, Inhalants, Dissociative Anesthetics
• Examples, Ingestion, Effects, Symptoms, Chronic Use

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

• The Impact of Substance Abuse at Work in the US
• Drug Testing Processes and Employee Rights
• Confronting the Substance Abusing Employee
• Safety Sensitive Employee Rights, Responsibilities, and Testing
• The Impact of Opiate Drug Use on Employee Behavior and Performance
• Treatment Options: EAPs, SAPs, and Twelve-Step Programs
• Managing an Employee’s Return to Work after Treatment

Who Will Benefit:

• Supervisors
• Managers
• Department directors
• All safety-sensitive employees, managers, or supervisors
• HR directors
• HR managers
• Safety directors
• Safety managers

Instructor Profile:

Dr. Steve Albrecht, PHR, CPP, BCC is internationally known for his training and consulting work on high-risk HR issues. He has taught substance abuse repose for municipal agencies and private sector employers for 16 years. He is board certified in HR, security, and coaching. He holds a doctorate in business administration, an M.A. in Security Management, a B.A. in English, and a B.S. in Psychology. He is retired from the San Diego Police Department and is a member of the California Narcotics Officers Association.

Topic Background:

One of the primary indicators of alcohol use in employees is absenteeism. But today, many alcoholic employees know that binging on Thursday and calling in sick on Friday is a red flag for their bosses and HR. So now they drink heavily on Tuesdays and miss work on Wednesdays. One of the primary indicators of employee drug use is theft. Alcohol is cheap; drugs are expensive, so employees with escalating prescription or street drug habits start to steal from their co-workers, customers, taxpayers, vendors, and from their organizations and rationalizing their behavior along the way.

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