Free Essay Example: Pre-Employment Drug Testing

Pre-employment drug testing has become popular in the US, where employers do drug testing to their employees when being hired to ensure that the hired employees do not have a history of drug abuse, which might affect their productivity. Candidates that have drug history have fewer chances of being hired because the organizations fear of low productivity and the ability of the person to influence other people at the workplace to start using drugs (Trondsen, 2019). There are other risks associated with the failure to do drug testing where the organizations risk incurring huge costs sustaining the health of the employees because of the health risks of the people that abuse drugs. The paper discusses how Pre-employment drug testing affects the organization.

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There are arguments that Pre-employment drug testing reduces the turnover of the organization, especially for companies that hire frequently. The reduction in turnover is because of the costs incurred to do drug testing whenever the organization is hiring new employees (Trondsen, 2019). Companies are forced to budget resources to be incurred in drug testing. The costs incurred in drug testing reduce the turnover of the organization because the resources spent in drug testing are not recovered back to the organization. Employers can do several tests to different people during employment; hence some costs that the company incurs might not help the organization in the long run when the candidate is not hired.

Different organizations have different policies when hiring new employees that have a history of drug abuse. There are employees that know how to balance their drug use and work while others may have a drug history, but they reformed; hence the history might deny them the opportunity to get hired (Trondsen, 2019). The influence of drug history when hiring new employees might influence the organization to hire employees without proper skills and qualifications and leave out candidates with skills and experience because of their drug history. Organizations need to have policies that enable them to hire the best-suited candidates to fill the vacant position.

There are organizations that have policies of random drug tests while they are working for the organization. The random test creates an environment of lack of certainty among the employees that use the drugs not banned; laws and policies keep on changing; therefore, such employees don't know their fate once the drug test is done (DiThomas, 2018). The employees have low productivity levels because they feel that they are likely to be discriminated based on drug test results, including losing their jobs. There are employees hired with fewer drug levels depending on the policy of the organizations. Such employees have low productivity because of the uncertainty leading to low turnover.

Organizations also benefit from Pre-employment drug testing, where there is a reduction in health insurance expenses and employee compensation due to drug-related injuries. The employees that get hired by the organization have higher productivity because of the good environment provided working with sober employees (DiThomas, 2018). Other employees do not have a fear of other colleagues that they work with. Organizations are justified to conduct drug testing to the creative conducive working environment for all the employees. Organizations aim at reducing employee absenteeism, which as attributed to drug abuse. Pre-employment drug testing does not violate the rights of people; organizations have different reasons why they do the testing for their benefits to ensure they achieve their goals.

References

DiThomas, M. (2018). Advantages and Disadvantages of Workplace Drug Testing. SafeWork Laboratories. Retrieved 19 May 2020, from https://safeworklaboratories.com.au/advantages-disadvantages-workplace-drug-testing/.

Trondsen, T. (2019). 3 Ways Pre-Employment Drug Testing Reduces Employee Turnover. Workplacesafetyscreenings.com. Retrieved 19 May 2020, from https://www.workplacesafetyscreenings.com/blog/3-ways-pre-employment-drug-testing-reduces-employee-turnover.