Case Study Choice 2 Drug testing is a touchy subject for most companies. If a company does not already have drug testing in place then it is a hard topic to bring up to employees. Drug testing is an essential way to make sure there is safety in the workplace. Not all employees are using drugs but the ones who are, need to be weeded out. Castulon should establish a drug testing program to ensure safety of employees and their company. The program they need to start is 100% testing on all new hires, and random testing on current employees. They would need to tell all employees that there will be random drug testing and that any employee who fails will be subject to disciplinary actions to include up to termination. Before the testing starts all managers need to have a meeting with their employees and inform them of the new testing and how it will be done. They also need to inform them of the disciplinary results if they fail the drug test. All testing procedures and policies need to be posted and accessible for employees to view at any time. The testing that would be set up would be a urine test. Once you are selected you will enter a room and not be allowed to leave until you have provided a sample. All samples will be private and the results will only be shared with the manager and the employee who took the test. If an employee fails due to prescription medication that they have a valid prescription for they will need to provide proof of that prescription, and no disciplinary actions will be taken. If an employee fails a drug test for using illegal drugs they will be terminated immediately. There will be no second chances due to the severe nature of using illegal drugs and the unsafe practices it brings into the workplace. An employee on drugs takes the risk of hurting themself or their fellow employee. They also take the chance of not producing a product correctly and that can cause lose to the customer who relies on that certain product(Ivancevich, 2010 pg 532-533). There are many difficult challenges that will face the organization when they establish a drug testing program. One of the biggest challenges is the funding for the program. If the company has 500 employees and it is $50 per test they will be paying $25,000 to test everyone. They also will need to test all potential employees that they will look to hire. Also if a test comes back with a false positive and they need to re-test an employee it cost more money. Another challenge the organization will face is push back from employees. There will always be employees who will not want drug testing because they never had it before. These employees will feel that their rights are being violated. It is a challenge to get employees who never had a drug test to understand why you are making this change now. I think one of the biggest challenges will be getting the program started. First, you need to have your legal team look over how the policy is written to ensure that there are no loop holes and that the verbiage is correct to cover all grounds. Next you have to find a vendor that does drug testing and research their practices. You want to make sure they are reputable and reliable. Finally you need to train certain people who will be in charge of running this program to ensure they are well trained and ready for when the new policy takes place(Ivancevich, 2010 pg 532-534). Alcohol use is a high risk in a lot of companies. Sometimes alcohol use is greater than drug use. I think companies should test for alcohol use under certain circumstances. First circumstance would be if an employee shows up to work drunk and you can smell the alcohol on them. In this instance that employee should be taken immediately to be tested. Second instance is if the employee shows any signs that they are drunk or that they have been drinking. If employees show signs of being drunk they need to be pulled off the production floor so they do not cause any accidents or production errors. This employee will need to be questioned and then taken to be tested. Both alcohol and drug testing need to be made mandatory for all employees when they are chosen. Any refusal of testing will automatically be considered a sign of guilt and will come with all disciplinary action. Employers are expected and required to provide a safe workplace for all employees and drug use in the workplace compromises safety. Studies show that employees who do not use drugs compared to employees who do are four times more likely to be involved in a work place accident. Employers who know that employees are using drugs and they do not do anything about it are responsible for incidents that might hurt other employees. They need to worry about law suits and the repercussions. Also when there is an accident at work you lose man power which can take away from the production of the team.

Ivancevich, J. M. (2010). Human resource management (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.