Many businesses and organisations in the UK choose to have a random drug and alcohol screening process because it not only shows that you are a fully conforming company but also reduces the risk of accidents, absenteeism and the law being broken on your premises. It also helps protect the safety of all other employees in the workplace. Random Drug testing also prevents your employees from effectively tricking the system and only abstaining from taking drugs during a window period before the test is conducted.
To have a random drug and alcohol policy, as an employer you need to first make sure that you have legally prepared your employees for the process.
The following must be in place:
• A written drug and alcohol policy that states that employees must not take illegal drugs and what those drugs are.
• A written and signed employees contract that states that random drug testing is conducted at the workplace.
• A policy and protocol that assures the same testing program is used for all employees and that all employees will be treated equally.
How can we help?
For Random Drug testing we recommend either urine or hair tests. Both of these tests are effective for obtaining quick and accurate results.
Urine Screening
With an instant urine test, the sample is collected and will provide a immediate result. If this result is positive then the sample will be sent to a laboratory following a strict chain of custody and the result will be confirmed and become fully legally defensible. Alternatively, all urine samples can be sent straight to the laboratory.
Hair Screening
Hair screenings are another option for random drug testing. The benefit of taking a hair sample is that they can go back and show up to 12 months of drug and alcohol use. Therefore, a hair test can show repeated substance abuse and its frequency. Although hair tests do not offer immediate results they have many benefits, such as easy sample collection and less chance of an employee cheating the test.