By Liz Carey
Durham, NC (WorkersCompensation.com) – According to a recent study, nearly 20 percent of hospitality employees have substance abuse disorder, and the percentage is rising.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 19.1 percent of all adults employed in the accommodation and food services industry used illicit drugs in the past month. That’s up from 16.9 percent during the years between 2003 and 2007.
The report ranked industry segments by the percentage of employees who had used drugs in the past month, as well as the percentage of employees who had substance abuse disorder. Accommodations and food service ranked first on the list of both.
Arts, entertainment and recreation employees ranked second on the list of employees who used illicit drugs in the past month, with 13.7 percent of employees; while management ranked third, with 12.1 percent.
For the percentage of employees with substance abuse disorder, construction ranked second – 14.3 percent compared to accommodation and food service employees 16.9; while arts, entertainment and recreation came in third with 12.9 percent.
The statistics came as little surprise to New York Times opinion writer, Brittany Bronson, who is an English instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“Naturally, food and beverage work is accompanied with an easy access to alcohol. But with the addition of late-night hours, long shifts without meal breaks and dark rooms full of people drinking, it is no surprise the environment often nurtures addiction,” Bronson wrote in a recent New York Times opinion piece. “The percentage (of workers with substance abuse disorder) is especially jarring when you consider that the restaurant industry is the second-largest private-sector employer. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in food service will soon outnumber those in manufacturing.”
Drug abuse can cost employers up to $81 billion each year, according to research from Environment Health and Safety Today. From chronic lateness, to lackadaisical attitudes about safety, to poor job performance, substance abuse all of which can impact an employer’s bottom line through lost productivity and increased workers’ compensation costs.
And those costs increase when drugs are involved. According to the Department of Labor, drug and alcohol abuse contribute to up to 65 percent of on-the-job accidents and up to 50 percent of workers’ compensation claims. Additionally, substance abusers use three times the normal level of employee health benefits, and incur 300 percent higher medical costs.
Tom Jackson, executive editor at Equipment World Magazine, said the issue spreads beyond the workplace. Sometimes, drug use can even hinder employers from hiring.
“In the construction industry, it is not uncommon to find 25 to 35 percent of pre-employment drug tests coming up positive,” he wrote in a recent article. “Even when construction workers know they are going to be tested, 3 to 5 percent still test positive.”
That’s led some companies to be more lenient about their drug policies.
“Some in my peer group that do a lot of specialty work say they couldn’t hire anyone if they did drug testing,” Gary Demos, president of Dave Fox Design-Build Remodelers, in Columbus, Ohio told builderonline.com. His company stopped drug testing its employees after 15 years of testing. “We expect a lot from our people in many ways, and it can become very difficult to add production people when we need them. So far we’re holding the line on drug testing, and I hope that we won’t be forced to re-evaluate.”
But for others, the risks of drug use on the job site are just too much.
Bethesda, MD - based Case Design/Build decided more than 10 years ago to introduce drug testing prior to employment, in addition to conducting tests at random and in cases where it had reasonable suspicion. “We had been having too many accidents over the past years and felt that this was a way to weed out some bad eggs,” said Jan Shaut, a senior vice president with Case Design/Build told builderonline.com. The company decided to introduce pre-employment drug testing, as well as random drug testing more than 10 years ago. “There was a lot of fear among our people, but our leadership group felt strongly that ‘clean living’ was more a part of our culture and that with the number of accidents we were having, we couldn’t afford to let those who were not drug-free work on jobsites.”
Lisa Pierce, a human resources consultant with HR Consultants, Inc., in Johnstown, PA, said in an interview with WorkersCompensation.com that her firm is seeing more interest in drug testing policies — whether it’s for pre-employment screening or drug testing because of injury or accident.
“Certainly, we’re not seeing a decrease in drug testing,” she said. “We have seen and are drafting a lot of policies about drug testing. We’ve seen a spike in clients wanting ‘reasonable suspicion’ policies, that allow employers to drug test if they suspect an employee of drug use.”
Whether the client is reacting to an incident at their place of business or not, the firm is seeing drugs become a larger issue in the workplace.
“We are seeing a lot of our employers revisiting their drug testing policies to ensure that they accommodate for employees who are card carrying medical marijuana patients,” she said. “And there has been a surge of interest in reviewing drug testing policies and procedures. In many companies, this wasn’t an issue that was on their radar before, but …there is definitely a growing interest in the policies.”
