Why You Should Alcohol Test Your Employees

It has been estimated that about 70 percent of substance abusers hold jobs. This includes the 18 million alcohol abusers that have been estimated in the United States. Coming to work under the influence of alcohol can cause various concerns and issues. Among them are risks of an accident, reduced productivity, higher levels of health insurance costs and therefore lesser profits and unsafe conditions for everyone.

An alcohol test can help in finding out those who have been abusing alcohol or have come to work under the influence. It has been seen that alcohol abusers like other substance users are more prone to miss work and are also at a much higher risk of being involved in a job accident. This risk obviously is far greater in jobs that require extremely high levels of concentration.

Workplaces that require physical work like driving or managing large equipment, in other words any work that requires the reflexes to be at their best, can benefit from on-site alcohol testing. Since alcohol consumption causes blurred vision and coordination issues, these tasks become difficult for those under the influence. Transportation companies, construction companies, factories, heavy equipment handling companies and others should definitely include alcohol testing as a regular practice to ensure job safety.

Not only are alcohol tests necessary for the job safety of the employees, they also keep the employers away from complicated law suits that tend to follow incidents. It may not be practical to have a laboratory come in and conduct testing every now and then, but the breath analyzer alcohol test is an extremely convenient and accurate one that can get around this problem and literally be used every day.

Educational institutions are also using the alcohol test to ensure that there are no students that come to the campus under the influence of alcohol. This is a necessary measure that is being taken to ensure that proper discipline is maintained in the premises of the school. Hooliganism and unacceptable behavior can be avoided by using the 0.02 percent breath alcohol test.  As a matter of fact, the University of Minnesota, for example, requires season-ticket holding students guilty of previous alcohol offenses to take an alcohol test before they enter the stadium (see the full article at the blog Alcohol Testing).

Small businesses that cannot afford to hire a laboratory for these alcohol tests on a regular basis can ensure that their workplace is devoid of alcoholics. While those with desk jobs may not be at such a high risk of accidents on the job, the short term effects of alcohol can lead to low productivity and bad judgment. Alcohol induced fatigue, insomnia and lack of judgment and false confidence can cause some really wrong decisions to be made.

The home alcohol test is also something that educational institutions and corporate offices can use to ensure that the employees are clean and not under the influence of alcohol when they report. These alcohol tests are simple and can give results in a matter of seconds.

The 0.02 percent breath analyzer is a great piece of zero-tolerance equipment that can detect alcohol that has been consumed in the past hours. It is also a convenient thing to use to decide whether it is safe to drive or not rather than calculating the number and type of drinks consumed before getting behind the wheel.

Such alcohol tests not only provide a great way to pick out alcohol abuse at the workplace, they are a significant help in deterring teenagers from indulging in alcohol too.

– Anne Hamilton