Obviously, illegal drugs on your property is cause for immediate firing, especially when you consider the legal trouble your business could be in and the negative impact it would likely have on your company’s image. However, most employees who do drugs won’t bring them to the office — or, if they’re abusing prescription drugs, the drugs might seem benign enough to not cause an issue. However, you absolutely do have the authority and cause to require your employees remain drug-free, even if they never take drugs at work.

Arrange Surprise On-Site Testing

Arrange reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing with OCCWELL, which takes its mobile lab to your company so there’s minimal disruption to your work day. Since having advanced notice or requiring off-site testing might give drug users ample time to flush it from their system temporarily to pass the test, it’s better to alert employees there will be random testing (to discourage them from using in general) and not provide any more details.

Encourage Overall Wellness

In addition to drug testing, we provide on-site employee physicals and can discuss company-wide health initiatives that will encourage healthier living among your employees overall. Overall wellness will lower health care costs among your employees, which will help you keep your company’s premium and health savings account contributions manageable.

The Bottom Line

Even if employees don’t abuse drugs on-site, it doesn’t leave their systems when they’re working for you. Addicts are more likely to be tardy or absent from work entirely and are less focused and less efficient throughout the day. As their employer, you absolutely have cause to ascertain if an employee behaving erratically or becoming more withdrawn is abusing drugs.

OCCWELL can help you navigate the murky waters of suspecting substance abuse and learning how to deal with it with your employees. A drug test is all the legal proof you need to terminate an employee’s contract and hire a replacement more likely to perform the job efficiently.

If you currently employ or plan to hire people with disabilities, you know that they’re part of a well-rounded and vibrant working community. However, even if you have the best intentions, you may overlook things that could make your working environment uncomfortable or even inhospitable to the disabled people on your staff. Fortunately, it’s easier to make adjustments to your company environment than you might think.

Both pre-employment physicals and physicals performed on an annual basis afterward will help you gauge your employees’ current level of health and provide you with a better overall picture of how to approach healthier living initiatives on site. While it’s illegal to discriminate against prospective employees with disabilities, if a specific job requires physical activity, a physical performed ahead of time can help you determine with the job applicant if she’s suited for the work. If not, you may be able to readjust the typical requirements of the job to better suit her abilities.

Hold Wellness Programs

With the help of OCCWELL, plan on-site wellness programs to educate your staff about healthier living and making tasks less obtrusive for those with disabilities. We can discuss not only tips for when to assist a colleague with disability, but also tips for when not to be too intrusive.

Redesign as Necessary

The most common obstacle to a person performing his job when he has a disability is poor design choices that limit access. Work with health consultants to design rooms, desks and entryways with better access. For example, consider adding automatic doors and more space between desks.

Ask an OCCWELL representative what other measures you can take to make your working environment healthier and more comfortable for all your employees. In addition to outreach about disability requirements, we can also help you encourage healthier living among all employees with on-site testing and information about healthy living initiatives.

Every business owner or manager dreads the possibility of workplace injuries — and although they’re more common in industries that require physical labor from employees, they’re possible at any job in any industry. Doing what you can to prevent them or reduce the number and severity of injuries on the job will save your company money by keeping insurance costs and payouts low.

Do Regular Screenings

Intoxication on the job is a leading cause of injuries, so regular workforce drug screening services are a must to keep your employees focused and alert when on the job. Even if a staff member hasn’t taken drugs that day, frequently doing drugs can leave the toxins in their systems and impact their performance. If they know their jobs depend on regular, surprise screenings, they’ll be less likely to do drugs to begin with.

Perform Regular Physicals

In addition to regular screenings, ask that all employees get physicals on an annual basis. With OCC Well, we can even bring the mobile clinic to your place of business so everyone will get a physical on site. We’ll help your employee’s spot issues that could prevent them from performing their job in a safe manner.

Hold Regular Health Events

Ask the OCC Well experts to visit your place of business on a regular basis to host health events such as demonstrations to provide tips for working in a healthier, more productive way and exercising as a group to promote better health. Our experts can even advise you on healthier foods to keep stocked in the break room or cafeteria to encourage better eating.

Get in touch with OCC Well to learn more about how our mobile clinics and regular physicals can help you keep workplace injuries to a minimum. It’s a small, affordable investment that actually saves you money in the long term when you consider how much less likely your staff will be to get injured.

When looking to quickly fill warehouse, factory, construction, delivery, or other jobs that involve a lot of physical labor, it’s not uncommon to hold job fairs and hire new employees by the dozens or even hundreds. However, regardless of the contracts you have to make good on, it’s worthwhile to hire experts to perform pre-employment physicals before you actually offer a person a job or during a trail period before you fully commit to hiring them.

Avoiding Injuries

In addition to regular annual employee physicals to make sure a person’s capability to perform a job hasn’t changed, you need to know if a job applicant is capable of performing the tasks associated with the job before the work even begins. A person incapable of lifting the required amount of weight, standing for long periods or bending over when necessary is more likely to get injured on the job — which will cost your company a sizeable amount of money for settlements, increased premiums, and hiring someone to step in.

Avoiding Delays

Employees who are incapable of working at the pace you set as standard for the entire facility will slow down your company’s abilities to meet deadlines and deliver products or services as promised. It’s not just about a person’s ability to perform a task once, but her ability to perform the task for hours at a time in the long term. A physical will help you catch potential obstacles to that.

Ensure Healthier Employees

A healthier pool of employees typically translates to lower health premiums. Incentivize good health choices, such as eating better and exercising more, with regular examinations, beginning before an employee even starts working for your company.

OCCWell makes adding physical examinations to the employee search process a breeze. With fully functional labs and clinics we can take on the road, we can even come to a job fair and become a part of the fast hiring process so you’ll know even by the end of the day whether your batch of new recruits will work out for you. Call us today to learn more.