According to SHRM, “The practice of requiring job applicants to take a pre-employment drug test appears to be gaining acceptance from employers.”
According to the results of a survey of 1,058 randomly selected HR professionals:
Pre-employment drug testing is common:
- 57% of participants’ organizations require all job candidates to take a pre-employment drug test
- 29% have no pre-employment drug-testing requirement
- 14% test applicants for safety-sensitive positions and when required by law
Large organizations are more likely to conduct pre-employment drug testing for all job applicants:
- 71% with 2,500 or more employees required pre-employment drug testing
- 62% with 500 to 2,499 employees required pre-employment drug testing
- 56% with 100 to 499 employees required pre-employment drug testing
- < 40% with < 100 employees required pre-employment drug testing
The survey reported important benefits to organizations that conduct pre-employment drug testing:
- “Nine percent of respondents reported that prior to implementing a drug-testing policy, their organizations had a high rate of employee absenteeism (over 15 percent), compared with just 4 percent of respondents that reported a high rate of absenteeism after initiating a drug-testing policy—a decrease of approximately 50 percent.”
- “Approximately one-fifth of the respondents (19 percent) reported that productivity improved after implementing a drug-testing policy. Six percent of the poll participants reported that their organizations had a high incidence rate (over 6 percent) of workers’ compensation claims after implementing an organizational drug-testing program, compared with 14 percent who reported similar incidence rates before initiating such a policy.”
Source: SHRM Poll: Drug Testing Applicants Favored by More than Half of Employers
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For information about our Drug Screening services, see Employment Drug Screening.