Alcohol-Related Injuries at Work
In a discussion recently, the issue of alcohol-related injuries at work was brought up. Clearly, no-one wants any injury to occur at work, but we have prepared ourselves for the eventuality, and as a sign company we have plenty of signage indicating the procedures to take in case of an accident.
However, this assumes one important thing – that the injury occurred on someone who was sober. What if an employee came to work in the morning and for whatever reason, was intoxicated, to any degree, a little or a lot. I should make it very clear right here, that it is our policy to send home any employee who is thought to be intoxicated. We do not tolerate that kind of behaviour.
After some thought though, it was suggested that breathalyzer tests might be implemented at work. It is an odd procedure to have to carry out mind you, can you imagine ‘spot’ breathalyzer tests, and having to explain them?
This leads us to think of the legal implications of course. What protection does the company have in terms of liability? If we permitted someone to work here who was slightly intoxicated, and they had an accident, would we be liable? What protections does the law provide the company in implementing such tests to prevent the issue of liability from even coming up?
Obviously this is not something that we can just implement at a whim, we have to be certain of our own protection, and the very protection we provide the other employees, before we instigate such a draconian method of enforcing sobriety. But on the other hand, to enforce sobriety in an individual might provide greater protection for all the other employees!
So, for those of us who are reading this and want to take part I have compiled a list of resources to browse through at your leisure, which I thought might be of some use to the discussion:
- The Institute of Alcohol Studies’ PDF document on this subject: Alcohol and the Workplace.
- Channel 4′s webpage suite on Drugs and Alcohol.
- Life Style Extra’s article on alcohol: one in six brits under the influence at work
- The TUC’s article on alcohol and work, a dangerous mix.
- Safe and Healthy Working: a good article on the obligations of employers, some legislation to follow, the benefits of having a good alcohol policy at work, etc.,
I should note that there is precious little information available online as to whether using a breathalyzer test is legal or not. Perhaps someone could add a comment if they find something useful regarding this subject?
We welcome anyone to join the conversation, there are two ways to do this; first of all you can register for an account on this site then participate using that ID, or you can add a comment without registering or having an account, by filling out name/email fields when you comment.
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2006 Aug 14
The English Guy has commented:
Alcohol & Work…
I wrote an article last week for the GRS blog, entitled ‘Alcohol-Related Injuries at Work‘. Fascinating subject really, as we were talking about it at a meeting and wondering what to do if someone turned up to work intoxicated.
The thrust o…
Comments
2006 Aug 14
admin has commented:
Testing comments.
This is a comment.
2007 Aug 25
Jason Clark has commented:
To me, the most obvious solution is that HR should have a complete ban on alcohol during working hours. Organizations cannot afford to take the risk of staff drinking during lunchtime and then have them working with colleagues, customers and suppliers. It is simple – make it a gross misconduct offense. As for alcoholics in the workplace, one must treat sensitively yet act directly, a solution would be a partially paid vacation in a drug treatment center. HR must balance the needs of the individual as well as the business. The individual should of course receive support but HR, please remember that business needs to continue so avoid unnecessary over-the-top touchy-feely bureaucracy.
2007 Aug 31
admin has commented:
Jason, thanks for the reply. A complete ban does seem obvious, and indeed we do have an unwritten rule on that. I don’t think we’re a large enough organisation to afford for drug treatment centres yet though.