Employee Substance Abuse Addiction

Substance Abuse Most substance related addictions are attributed with substances which are very expensive to purchase. For instance, cocaine could be very expensive for many people to be able to have a sustained purchase and consumption of the substance which will eventually lead to its addiction. This limits many people from being able to access such substances and consequently likelihood of fewer cases of the substance addiction.

However, opportunities for access of such drugs open in variety of ways. One of the ways through which the substance can be accessible or available to a person is through employment which empowers the terms of ability to purchase the substances using the money earned as remuneration.

Other than that, there is what could be considered a strong opportunity for such people to access the drug substance; from the place of work where they use the drug substance, could be for a different purpose. For instance, an employee of a given hospital may know a given drug which is supposed to be used in the hospital for medical purposes e.g. Opioids drugs, and then uses the drug for purposes other than medical ones. This will actually be considered a drug abuse and continued usage of such drugs may result into addiction.

How can employee substance abuse be spotted?

Most of addiction symptoms from drug will be observable and thus for an employee who has worked in a given firm for some time it becomes very easy to spot him/her.

How?

Appearance of the employee – this one of the common things you will likely observe. The general dressing of the employee may drastically become inappropriate, incoherent speech, poor hygiene just to mention a few.
Performance at work – this will be observed based on the previous performance of the employee. An employee, who used to be very productive, begins to produce low quality work, low output, poor decision making, increase in sick permissions, and inactiveness in work among many other indicators.
Inter-personal relationship – in this case, the way the employee used to relate with the other employees at place of work changes abruptly. Some of these changes could depict themselves in the forms of: – poor listening skills, the employee becomes over-confident, accusative, uncooperative among other issues.
Moody – the employee may become moody towards everyone around. This may lead the person look irritable, depressed, suspicious, withdrawn or excessively talkative behavior that changes after breaks. This could be explained that during these breaks there are things that the employee is doing.
The employee may become a regular absentee. This in most of cases will be absenteeism without permission from authorities.
Another possible observation could be frequent disappearances from work place
The employee who used to be reliable becomes drastically un-reliable in activities and keeping time.
The employee may look confused, low in memory and have difficulties in recalling details and instructions given earlier.
Tasks which are obvious and straight forward takes the employee extra ordinary time to be done or sometimes fails to be done completely.
The employee will rarely admit to errors committed and will even argue with authorities.
The employee may begin to isolate him/herself from the other employees. This will be more noticeable for an employee who previously used to be social and courteous.

Substance Abuse It is though very important to bear in mind that, sometimes the indicators mentioned above may not sufficiently indicate what we think of them. For example, a person’s isolation of oneself from the other staffs could be as a result of conflict between the employees which makes one feel guilt or factors such as family issues. Therefore, before you conclude that a given employee is a drug addict, a thorough investigation needs to be done to establish sufficient grounds for the claims. This can be achieved through identifying as many indicators as possible.

What should you do as an employer in such a case?

Pattern formation – since we are saying one sign of addiction may not be sufficient to make any conclusion from, try to assemble evidence by noticing patterns in which these behaviors are recurring. Draw patterns of as many of these signs as possible.
Record keeping on employee’s activities – as a manager, you should not diagnose personal problems but you must ensure that the production standards of your firm are met. These targets will be difficult to meet if you have a member or several of your staff who is an addict. Therefore, keep record of the employee’s progress as far as work place turn ups and productivity is concerned. If you notice that the addicted person is affecting the productivity of the firm, go to the next step immediately.
Hold a discussion – here you are required to sit down with the employee privately. You should ensure that there are no other employees around and in every part of the discussion, confidentiality is ensured. The agenda of this meeting should be to discuss the performance of the employee but not to accuse the employee of addiction. Ensure that you remain calm and without getting emotional.
Listen to the employee and respond accordingly – here you should give the employee a chance to explain the behavior. This is time for you to know what actually the problem is. Be keen to identify whether it is addiction or other factors. If the employee has nothing to explain and continues to deny the problem, but the production doesn’t improve, you will have reasons to reprimand or terminate.
Agree on the way forward – you will need to encourage the employee to get help but remember you are not the one to counsel the employee or prescribe action. However, you can direct the employee to professionals like AWAREmed for help. In the event that the employee accepts to go and seek help, document it well.
Unfit to serve – if the employee’s addiction had gone beyond points bearable by the firm, consider dismissing the employee on the same grounds. Ensure that professionalism is kept in the process.