On the other hand, hiring without due diligence can place you in danger of a negligent hiring lawsuit. Plus, employers often need help in making a decision when they are on the fence about someone, or when they have a number of qualified candidates.  And in some cases, this particular information might be very helpful.

However, there remains  a lot of  ambivalence nationwide regarding credit reports for employment screening. In fact, California tried to pass a law in October, 2009 to severely limit credit checks by employers, but the governor vetoed it in the end.

So, what does an employer do? The best advice at this point, (from our general counsel – Tamsen Leachman of Dunn Carney, Portland) is this:

If you are running a credit check, make sure the position you are hiring for has job duties directly related to finances, cash-handling or access to cash, accounts or credit and that you have a valid, job-related reason for the check.

“MADISON, NJ, November 20, 2009  New data released today by Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX), the nation’s leading provider of employment-related drug testing services, reveal that drug testing of hair specimens from employees and job applicants in the general U.S. workforce has tracked sharp downward trends in cocaine and methamphetamine use from 2005 to the first half of 2009 that mirror similar drops shown by urine testing. Testing of urine specimens can detect a single instance of drug use in the prior one to three days, while hair testing can detect a pattern of repetitive use over a period of up to 90 days.

Hair and urine test data show that declines in cocaine use have been dramatic since 2005, with hair tracking a 36 percent drop , and urine tracking a 57 percent drop. A hair data decline of 55 percent in methamphetamine positivity rates, validate the decline seen in urine test data, which fell 64 percent.”

Remember, the differences in the rates of decline is because urine testing will show recent and even one-time use, while hair follicle testing will show past patterns of abuse, but not current or one-time use.

Want more information on how to lower the potential for drug abuse in your company? Call us at 888-833-8304 or email me at pamelam@occuscreen.com.

 77% of illegal drug users are employed. Are you employing them? If so, what does this mean for you?

• Employees who use illegal drugs cost their employers about twice as much in medical claims as non-users.
• Employees who use illegal drugs are 3.6 times more likelty to be involved in a workplace accident, and 5 time more likely to file a worker’s comp claim.
• Employees who use illegal drugs are 2.2 times more likely to request early dismissal or time off, 2.5 times more likely to have absences of eight days or more, and 3 times more likely to be late for work.
• Up to 40% of industrial fatalities and 47% of industrial injuries can be linked to alcohol use and alcoholism.

Employing drug users simply costs employers money.  In fact, alcohol drug use costs U.S employers roughly $81 billion in lost productivity per year.

Drug screening employers is a small investment, for a very large return.  Please contact us at 888-833-5304 if you would like to talk about your drug screening program.

Next up:  Where are the drug users working?

1) Testing Methods- While urine testing is usually a great method to find illegal drugs in the system, it is not necessarily the best system for alcohol testing. Why? The urine test will show the amount of drugs or alcohol in the body since the last void. Not the actual current amount. If you are testing for illegal drugs, this is not an issue. There shouldn’t be any in the system at all! But if you are testing for alcohol and are looking for the level of impairment, you should consider oral fluids, breath alcohol, or blood if necessary. Having said that, if you have a policy prohibiting drinking or being under the influence of alcohol at work, and the urine test shows alcohol… there is a decent chance it was consumed at work, or close enough to work hours that the employee could be seen as working under the influence. If you are doing reasonable suspicion or post-accident cause testing though, you will get a more accurate level of impairment with oral fluids or a breath alcohol test.

2) Alcohol is a legal drug – While you can prohibit consumption of alcohol during the work day, or prohibit being under the influence at work, it is unlikely you can require that your employees avoid it during their free time, as you can with illegal drugs. However, if your employees are role models in the public eye, you can require that they do not appear in public in a drunken state, even if they are off the clock. No child wants to see their soccer coach stumbling from the local bar!

3) Alcohol testing is considered a medical test by the ADA – This means you cannot test for alcohol pre-offer. (Although you can test for illegal drugs pre-offer.) It also means you can only test for alcohol if there is a reasonable suspicion  (it can be debated on whether an accident is a reasonable suspicion) and it means you cannot test randomly for alcohol unless the employee is in a public safety position, or in an alcohol rehabilitation program.

In short, alcohol is a drug, but is treated a bit differently than other drugs in employment screening situations. Be sure to consult your attorney regarding your own screening policy.

Social Security will no longer accept manual telephone SSN verifications in less than 10 days from today!

Currently, our telephone agents can verify up to five employee SSNs for employers. Beginning fall 2009, Social Security will no longer provide this service. You must use TNEV or SSNVS to verify SSNs. Employees who verify SSNs for their employers must be registered SSNVS users in order to access TNEV and/or SSNVS. If you are not a registered SSNVS user, don`t delay register today for SSNVS. TNEV is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If you are an employer and have a drug screening program, you will eventually get a non-negative drug screen result. What will you do?

Let’s look at some possible non-negative results, so that you can plan ahead on how to handle them.

Positive – Illegal Drug or Prescription Drug – Many employers will initially handle an illegal or legal positive result in exactly the same way. Often the result is sent through the Medical Review process. If this is the case, a Medical Review Officer (MRO) will contact the applicant, let them know about the positive result and ask them for a valid prescription. If they can provide a valid prescription, the test is given a negative result. If they cannot, the positive result holds. Some employers perform this process on their own, although many feel the cost of the MRO is well worth the increased legal defensibility, as well as the relief from being taken out of the middle of the situation.

Dilute Specimen – If you are doing urine drug screening, a dilute result means there was too much water in the urine to confirm the result. Why was there too much water? Well, it could be a number of reasons. The applicant drank a lot of water because they are very active, or it was a hot day, or they were trying flush their system clear of drugs. Or perhaps they just retain a lot of water naturally. You can’t be sure.

To further confuse the issue, there are two types of Dilute Results:

Dilute-Negative means that the sample was diluted, but no drugs presented themselves. 

Dilute-Positive means that there was a positive result, but the laboratory could not confirm it because of the amount of water in the urine.

What to do? Well, first, you should prepare for this in advance, and include it in your policies and procedures. Employers can decide how to handle this situation, if they are not regulated by the Department of Transportation. An example of a procedure would be as follows:   

                         �
Dilute-Negative = Retest within 24 hours.

Second Dilute-Negative = Failed test.

Dilute-Positive = Treat as a Positive and send to MRO.

However, it is up to your organization to make your policy. Just make this decision before you have to deal with it. 

How do you prevent Dilute Specimens (low creatinine levels)?
There are two things that would help you in preventing dilute specimen drug screen results if this has become an issue for your organization:

1) Give the applicant instructions. Before you send them off to the lab, provide your applicants with specific written instructions, such as: “Please refrain from drinking large quantities of liquid, including water before your test.” You could even warn them that a dilute result may be considered a fail. 

2) Switch to Oral Fluids drug screening. If instructions do not reduce your Dilute Specimen Results problem, you may want to switch to oral fluids testing. Make sure you are getting lab analyzed results, though, not using an instant product. Dilute specimens are not an issue with saliva, nor are adulterated results or temperature problems.

Other Non-Negative Results
The following are some other potential non-negative results and suggestions for procedure.

Temperature Out of Range: It is suggested to re-test as soon as possible (within 24 hours).

Substituted: This is an adulterated substance and should be a failed test.

Invalid: This outcome is either highly dilute or substituted.  It is not clear enough to tell either way.  This would be a re-test for the applicant.  Make sure to remind them about limiting the liquids.

Luckily, most drug screen results are negative. However, if you are prepared in advance to receive a drug screen that is non-negative, you can take immediate action to resolve the situation when possible.

In a recent case study, Quest Diagnostics found that random drug testing programs do appear to deter drug use.  

Here is a quote from the Quest website: “In the federally mandated safety-sensitive workforce, where employees expect random drug testing, the drug positivity rate is far lower than the rate of positivity among job applicants in that same workforce. However, in the general workforce, where employees are far less likely to expect random drug testing, the drug use positivity rate is dramatically higher than that of job applicants.”

According to Barry Sample, Ph.D., Director of Science and Technology for Quest Diagnostics’ Employer Solutions Division,“Pre-employment drug testing is an important frontline filter to help ensure a drug-free workforce. However, we see a more complex story when these rates are compared to the general workforce, where employees are far less likely to expect random drug testing. Here, the random urine test positivity rate is 47 percent higher than the pre-employment urine test positivity rate.”

The study went on to say that positive levels in a safety-sensitive environment, where workers expect to be randomly tested, are 18% lower than pre-employment rates.  However, in the general workplace, where random testing is not as common, positivity rates were 47% higher. Therefore employees who know they are going to be tested randomly, are much less likely to use and test positive.

The lesson? Drug screen before hiring, and then employ a random screening program to keep your workplace drug free.

The things is… criminal background records are kept in county courthouses.  They are not posted on websites. They might be reported to databases. They might be held by a state Department of Corrections. They are definitely held in the county courthouse where the felony or misdemeanor occured. The open cases and open warrants are also held in the courthouse. This is not information you can find online.

In the employment screening industry, we hire researchers nationwide to go into the county courthouses and retrieve records via the court clerk. If we could just go online and search a person’s name, we would!

If you are an employer and are doing your own criminal backgrounds by going online, or even by doing instant database searches, you are giving yourself a false sense of safety. You might find something, but you will never know what you did not find.  It is like trying to catch fish with a net. You might catch some, but you are missing most. Is that going to be good enough if you end up with a negligent hiring lawsuit? Or with an employee that continues to follow their pattern of theft or violence once employed with you?

Do it right. Invest the small amount of money it takes (it should be less than the employee’s first day of pay) and hire an employment screening firm that has been in business for a long time, has a good reputation, and can provide county court records. You won’t be sorry.