How to Fight Alcohol Abuse at Workplace?

Alcohol abuse at workplace costs businesses millions of dollars every year in the form of lost productivity, absenteeism and medical treatment. With respect to employees, alcoholism results in various issues at workplace, like poor performance, negative morale, health issues, etc.

If you look into the statistics by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the year 2011, 64.3% of full-time employed adults aged 18 or older were using alcohol. These numbers are really high.

In order to fight alcoholism at workplace, as an employer, you need to take measures to keep a close check on employees abusing alcohol. Let's see how.

Make 'use of alcohol' as against employer's laws:
As an employer, improving the productivity of your employees is a goal for you to achieve. This becomes a reality when your employees are not involved or influenced by alcohol or other illicit drugs at workplace. As a matter of rule, make 'use of alcohol' as against the practices at workplace. By this, it will be easy for you to implement the norms as a policy measure.

Create awareness of the policy:
Let your employees know that your company is not going to be lenient with those in the workforce who use alcohol. As an administrative measure, this should be taken into account immediately. Send inter office memos to employees in this regard. Let them be aware of the consequence, including formal notifying, warning, or in the extreme case termination of employment. Make sure these go via proper channels at the organizational level.

Educate employees:
Alcohol use at workplace causes many issues which ultimately results in decline in productivity of workforce. Educate your employees regarding the benefits. Formulate an employee assistance program for the purpose. Include benefits like getting free counseling within the organization, referring to outside counselors if required, taking care of dependents, etc. This will prompt the affected employees to avail the benefits.

Identify alcohol abusing employees:
In view of this, monitor and document regularly the behavior, performance, attendance and any misconduct with co-workers until you get a strong clue that the employees are under the influence of alcohol. Look out for a confirmatory indication that the employee is under the influence of alcohol at workplace. Once identified, refer the employee for counseling.

Make alcohol testing mandatory:
Before you take the extreme step to remove the employee from the organization, it is sensible to conduct alcohol test using test kits. These include breathalyzers, urine test, blood test, hair test or saliva test. These kits are safe, accurate, fast and reliable. Make sure that the alcohol testing policy you pursue is in compliance with the state laws.

Like any other intoxicating substance, alcohol affects the overall productivity of the employees. Employers should be very careful in handling alcohol abusing employees, so that it does not affect their productivity.

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