Drink And Drug Policies Urgently Required

New research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has found that despite fourteen million working days being lost each year due to alcohol related problems, costing British industry an estimated £2 billion, only four out of ten employers believe that alcohol and drug misuse causes significant employee absence and lost productivity in the workplace. 

The survey report invites employers to tackle the drink and drug problem by initiating drink and drug policies to deal with a problem before it arrives. 

Ben Willmott, CIPD Employee Relations Adviser and author of the report says: 

Supporting employees with drug and alcohol problems has a high success rate with many individuals returning to work. But organisations must make employees aware of the policies and support in place otherwise they will not have the confidence to hold their hand up and acknowledge they have a problem and need help.  

"Since 2001 the number of organisations with drug and alcohol policies has remained around the same (58%) and where organisations do have policies they are doing very little to actively promote them. Simply adding a policy to a rarely used staff handbook is unlikely to ensure the issue is seen as an ongoing priority. Organisations should engage with their employees to ensure that they are fully aware of its provisions, this can be done using staff briefings, poster or publicity campaigns at work, internal notice boards newsletters and email alerts."

"Training managers so that they are able to identify and manage drugs and alcohol misuse in the workplace is also essential. Yet only a third of employers train managers in how to manage these sorts of issues at work.”

Despite the damaging impact of drug and alcohol misuse at work about four in ten of the 500 organisations surveyed has no policy in place to help them manage this challenging issue. In fact only 33% of employers train managers in how to manage misuse of drug and alcohol at work. 

The survey also revealed that 22% of employers currently carry out testing for alcohol or drug misuse and a further 9% plan to introduce some form of testing, as reported by the Workplace Law Network team on 11 September Oadby and Wigston Borough Council in Leicestershire will become one of the first local authorities in England to introduce drink and drug testing of its staff in November 2007.

Almost a fifth of employers are now planning to introduce a combined policy on drug and alcohol misuse at work.

Source: Workplace Law

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