Buried Too Deep to be Found

AOD testing Australia wide

We all think that our secrets are buried too deep to be found. We all think that no one could possibly know how we feel, and that we are alone in our secrets, alone in our thoughts.

The truth is that all of us have felt, in one way or another, many of the same things. Not everything, granted, but many of the same things. We have all felt loss, in different ways, and we have all felt love and heart break, in different ways. But, some secrets or parts of ourselves are kept hidden for what we believe are very good reasons. The truth is, though, that without some way to vent these secrets, it’s hard to keep them inside. It is a bit like stagnation in the physical world. It is just too much for one person to keep inside.

Many of us have memories or situations which we keep buried pretty deep because we either do not want to deal with them or we have not yet grown enough on the inside to deal with them just yet.

Whatever the situation, most if not all of your employees carry secrets with them, things which they each keep buried pretty deep. This can eventually eat away at them until they feel that they must resort to drugs or alcohol to deaden the pain. As long as they are doing this off the jobsite, then you don’t have to worry about it. But the second that they bring illicit substances into the workplace or they show up in an unfit state to work themselves, they are putting themselves and everyone else in danger.

You must protect your assets, and Mediscreen is just the business to business company to help you do that. We provide specialized AS4308 and AS4760 NATA accredited drug and alcohol testing services to businesses all over Australia, no matter where they may be located. For your convenience, our mobile drug testing and alcohol testing services come to your jobsite, and this is good for you, so that your company does not have to pay for your employees to travel a great distance just to find the nearest laboratory.

This article has been taken from : http://www.mediscreen.net.au/buried-too-deep-to-be-found/

Alcohol and Drug Testing as Component of OWIP

In many cases, organisations approach alcohol and drug testing as a program primarily in place to “catch” violators. The testing program becomes a tool for punishment rather than a means of promoting workplace safety. Though workplace drug testing programs can certainly identify workers using illicit substances or alcohol, focusing only on catching individual workers can ignore many factors that influence worker substance abuse. By concentrating on detecting violators, a prime opportunity is missed to promote a positive and healthy organisation wide environment.

In other words, instead of viewing the alcohol and drug testing program as punitive, it can become an integral component of a workplace health initiative. This approach promotes a drug and alcohol free workplace, while also helping employees understand that substance abuse is a lifestyle, and not just a workplace, issue. People do not have clear lines between their work and personal lives, meaning they overlap. While prohibiting drugs and alcohol in the workplace is important for workplace safety, it does not educate people on the harm that they cause themselves and others when using the substances.

One Link in the Healthy Living Campaign

An organisation wide improvement program benefits the business and the workers.  Developing an alcohol and drug workplace policy should be one link in a campaign to educate and train workers in best practices for developing and maintaining healthy lifestyles. Instead of focusing only on the impact of drugs on the body or alcohol on the brain, an improvement program will address many lifestyle factors that impact workers. For example, some companies incorporate training on the dangers of alcohol and drug use in a program focused on healthy diets and exercise. People who are concerned with taking care of their bodies through diet and exercise are much less likely to use drugs and alcohol.

Focusing on harm minimisation rather than punishment is also more likely to garner compliance. Employee assistance programs (EAPS) and health promotion programs (HPPs) can include a number of components of which drug and alcohol abuse education is just one. For example, employers may:

• Offer stress management workshops
• Provide employee access to counselling for substance abuse, family issues, stress etc.
• Provide safety training
• Hold supervisor-employee sessions to facilitate conversations about workplace concerns
• Conduct  regular review of workplace factors that may create employee stress, i.e. schedules, production schedules, staffing etc
• Pay for employee memberships at a gym or fitness centre
• Train supervisors on alcohol and drug policy while also giving supervisors a role in the organisation wide health initiative
• Contract with an outside medical agency to provide occupational health services and health screening

Healthy Lifestyles

By developing a companywide culture that promotes healthy lifestyles, the Onsite Drug and Alcohol Screening is not viewed as a way for the employer to catch and punish workers who violate company rules. Instead it is seen as a natural component of a healthy living program. Employers accrue a number of benefits from this approach. These benefits include increased productivity, fewer missed days of work, lower medical expenses, and improved workplace safety.

Onsite Drug and Alcohol Screening Today

Today, Drug Testing Australia is part of normal practice, but you are still likely to hear some complaints from your employees for having to do it, either because they occasionally abuse substances themselves, or because they are insecure enough that they believe that drug testing is a threat to their job somehow, even if they could not possible be fired for it. While you may have been implementing employee drug and alcohol testing long enough to know to ignore such complaints, there IS a level of complaining which you should not ignore. It is the social norm to feel put upon and dissension can spread among people rather quickly. Do NOT take someone aside and lecture them about their verbal complaints on the jobsite. Rather, pick out several people publicly, in front of everyone else, and ask them their concerns with the Onsite Drug and Alcohol Screening policies of the business, and most importantly, INTERACT with them on this. Do not keep them from knowing your thoughts or from knowing how open to their ideas you are. Take what they say very seriously and discuss it with them, always interacting, in order to absolutely positively make sure that they understand that they have been heard.

If you have experienced high employee complaining and high employee turnover in the past, you may find it emotionally less taxing to simply put a barrier or space or separation between yourself and your employees, but in the long run this is unwise. Your coworkers and employees work for you, not for themselves. They need to feel that their work has value, and not that they are just another drone worker employed in the line of hard labor. They need to feel that they themselves, as people, are needed, and that you yourself, as a person, are invested in them specifically and in their interests as a whole.

Mediscreen provides onsite drug and alcohol testing services to businesses all over Australia. Onsite drug testing helps employees feel even further appreciated, because it saves them time and money and effort that they would normally have to take in going to a laboratory.