NEWS

Program helps employers deal with drugs at work

John Jarvis
Reporter

MARION – In addition to putting their lives at risk, people who are addicted to drugs also put their livelihoods and possibly even their employers’ livelihoods at risk.

With the goal of reducing the chance of that happening, the Crawford-Marion Board of Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services, in partnership with the Marion Area Chamber of Commerce and Marion Community Foundation, initiated Join the Front Line at Work, said Jody Demo-Hodgins, the ADAMH board’s executive director.

In the U.S., employees who have a substance abuse disorder cost employers an estimated $81 billion each year for a variety of problems from increased medical costs to decreased productivity, the National Survey on Drug Use reported in 2013; 22 million people, or 8.2 percent of the U.S. population age 12 and older, had a substance abuse disorder and 70 percent of them were employed.

Nationally, there was a 5.7 percent increase in positive workplace drug tests in 2013, the first increase Quicken Diagnostics had reported since 2003.

“Join the Front Line at Work is really about how employers can create and support a drug-free workplace and what policies and procedures they need to follow,” Demo-Hodgins said.

Drug-free workplaces goal

Working Partners, based in Canal Winchester, is a training and consulting firm that helps businesses in implementing and maintaining drug-free workplace programs.

The firm conducted a 15-hour pilot course with Silver Line by Andersen, located at 2549 Innovation Drive, in June and plans to offer a second set of classes to five interested employers on Sept. 15, Sept. 29 and Oct. 6 at Dayspring Wesleyan Church.

Karen Pierce, the firm’s managing director, said Working Partners aims to help not only each employer but also the community in which each is located.

“We’re trying to do a couple things,” Pierce said. “We’re trying to get businesses’ own houses in order. By that we mean we want them to have a strong drug-free workplace. And some of these businesses’ houses are pretty good. We just want to bump it up a notch and get them to make a commitment to the community’s workforce.”

The chamber’s partnership with the local ADAMH board, chamber President Pam Hall said, was an outgrowth of the business organization’s efforts to provide its members with programs educating and informing them “about the drug challenges our community faces.”

Hall said as the heroin problem grew in Marion, the chamber called a special meeting “to talk about what role the chamber could or should play in ... being an active participant in the challenge, and so the board voted unanimously that they wanted to become more engaged and involved. And thus we began to form a relationship with the ADAMH board and wanted to help them promote the program Join the Front Line at Work, and we are encouraging our members to become involved in their training.”

Silver Line joins program

Working Partners’ mission fits well with Silver Line’s objective, said Jeannie Lloyd, Silver Line’s human resources manager.

“We’ve been on sort of a journey in transitioning, wanting to be a really strong employer in the community,” Lloyd said. “I joined them 16 months ago, and we started looking at things and (thought), ‘We’ve got some drug issues.’ That’s not who we want to be. ... We were changing some focus around, removing our tolerance for drugs in the workplace, but at the same time recognizing we’re working in a community that’s struggling with drug use, and how can we do both, have no tolerance on one side, but be an employer people want to work for. That’s what sort of drew us to working on this project.”

She said the three-session course provided drug addiction education:“What does drug abuse look like in the workplace? That can be eye-opening if you don’t have experience in the workplace. What to look for? It’s really an operational manual ... how to tighten up all of your policy procedures in such a way that you could support a program.”

Employers that complete the Working Partners course will leave with comprehensive drug-free workplace policies/programs and customized drug-free workplace documents, Pierce said.

The goal is not only to boost each employer’s ability to implement and maintain drug-free workplace procedures, but in so doing to reduce the incidence of drug addiction in the community’s entire workforce, she said.

“For example, if I have an applicant and she tests positive, we don’t want to send her down the street to get hired,” she said. “We want businesses to understand they can make a commitment to that community’s workforce by referring them to a community provider to get help.”

Course offerings

In the classes, “we talk about general drug information, current trends, the prescription drug abuse epidemic, the proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana,” Pierce said. “It’s like a grad school course. We’re talking about operationally, ‘How do you run a drug-free workplace?’ Then we talk about, ‘What’s your policy going to look like?’ For example, are you OK with alcohol at company parties? We want to help them figure out what they want their policies to look like.”

She said the course also includes discussion of any federal or state requirements to which an employer may be subject, and the possibility of eligible employers obtaining a rebate from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation for implementing a loss-prevention strategy addressing workplace use and misuse of alcohol and other drugs.

The course addresses other laws that affect a drug-free workplace and includes information about U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

“Drug testing is search-and-seizure, so a company has to be very careful about how they’re going to do drug testing,” she said.

“Our clients will do pre- and applicant (drug) testing, and they’ll do testing of active employees,” Pierce said. “All clients will have reasonable suspicion in their pocket if they need it. Some do random testing and some don’t. In this 15-hour course, the businesses figure out do you want to do random testing or not. Through this they write their policy, which really becomes their governing document for a drug-free workplace program. They leave with a legally sound, customized drug-free workplace policy.”

Lloyd said the program provided valuable information that she hopes to incorporate into Silver Line’s operational procedures.

“I think some of the issues are we’re looking to create a safe work environment where employees can be safe at work,” she said. “We want employees to go home the same way they’re coming to us. We want to be very vigilant and make sure no one under the influence.”

Ballot issue a concern

She said the state issue on the Nov. 3 general ballot in which voters will determine whether marijuana use will be legalized in Ohio is of particular concern.

“Some of the things I learned is I think all businesses need to take note of what that legislation on our ballots is going to mean,” she said. “There some clauses ... that are really contrary to creating a safe working environment, and that makes me nervous. I think doing nothing can put us all at risk, so in addition to that, learning where the loopholes are in your policies. ... What is the real impact of drug use?”

“To bring that awareness, the other piece I’m hoping to see is to connect applicants to community resources so they can go get help so as an employer I can be ready to work with them when they’re ... in their recovery,” she said. “That’s the piece I’m most excited about.”

Andersen Co., the Minnesota-based company that owns Silver Line, “is very compatible with the corporate citizenship, as well as the direction that this partnership is working for. That’s why we want to keep working to see if we can link it. We’re one plant of 15, so you don’t move something that big that quick, but we have philosophical compatibility definitely with this process.”

She said she likes Working Partners’ approach to helping develop drug-free workplace procedures.

“The nice thing is you can build your own company’s philosophies into best practice,” she said.

jjarvis@marionstar.com

740-375-5154

Twitter: @jmwjarvis

Interested in Front Line?

Any employer interested in signing up for the Join the Front Line at Work course is asked to call the Crawford-Marion Board of Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services at 740-387-8531.