Mon­i­ca Starke

In to­day's fast-paced work­place, new and sea­soned em­ploy­ees are among those who turn to un­healthy and un­ac­cept­able cop­ing mech­a­nisms as they face fierce com­pe­ti­tion and an ever-chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment.Re­al fears of los­ing their jobs, peer pres­sure, fam­i­ly prob­lems, fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties and an in­abil­i­ty to re­spond to tech­no­log­i­cal de­mands and job ex­pec­ta­tions cause such ex­treme pres­sures that sub­stance abuse in the work­place has height­ened dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

Em­ploy­ers ap­pear to be unit­ed in their per­cep­tion as to what con­sti­tutes sub­stance abuse and they agree that this be­hav­iour is un­ac­cept­able and cost­ly. Many em­ploy­ees need to recog­nise that it is in their best in­ter­est to sup­port the com­pa­ny poli­cies that have been put in place for pre­ven­tion pur­pos­es. Hope­ful­ly, com­pa­ny poli­cies have been put in place. Whether an or­gan­i­sa­tion is small or large, it will be ben­e­fi­cial to have clear guide­lines or poli­cies in place to han­dle sub­stance abuse. Too many su­per­vi­sors, es­pe­cial­ly new­ly-pro­mot­ed pro­fes­sion­als, feel awk­ward and fear­ful or are just not trained or equipped to han­dle em­ploy­ees who abuse al­co­hol or drugs and too of­ten the prob­lem is ig­nored un­til it es­ca­lates to the point where there is in­jury and/or job loss. It does not have to be this way.

Poli­cies on how to deal with sub­stance abuse in the work­place can pre­vent the de­struc­tion of the lives of col­leagues who have be­come trapped so that they face dis­ci­pli­nary charges or dis­missal.In or­der to help their peers, even fel­low em­ploy­ees should equip them­selves with the tools they need: fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the sub­stance abuse poli­cies for their work­place, oth­er rel­e­vant sub­stance abuse in­for­ma­tion, and re­fer­ral sources and skills that will en­able them to iden­ti­fy and re­fer their peers who may need as­sis­tance.

Train­ing em­ploy­eesto recog­nise abuse:Em­ploy­ers can do their part through the pro­vi­sion of qual­i­ty train­ing pro­grammes that teach em­ploy­ees how to recog­nise sub­stance abuse. Em­ploy­ees should be equipped to in­ter­vene when there is sub­stance abuse in the work­place. The US gov­ern­ment rec­om­mends that com­pa­nies should ed­u­cate their em­ploy­ees be­cause their well-be­ing is threat­ened by co-work­ers who use drugs.All em­ploy­ees should be knowl­edge­able about the symp­toms of sub­stance abuse which is de­fined as "the long-term patho­log­i­cal use of al­co­hol or drugs, char­ac­terised by dai­ly in­tox­i­ca­tion, in­abil­i­ty to re­duce con­sump­tion and im­pair­ment in so­cial or oc­cu­pa­tion­al func­tion­ing; broad­ly, al­co­hol or drug ad­dic­tion" (http://dic­tio­nary.ref­er­ence.com/browse/sub­stance abuse).

The symp­toms of sub­stance abuse in­clude:

In­creased ab­sen­teeism

A lack of punc­tu­al­i­ty

De­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty

Un­sat­is­fac­to­ry re­la­tion­ships with peers

Marked changes in at­ti­tude and gen­er­al be­hav­iour

Marked changes in ap­pear­ance, body lan­guage

Phys­i­cal cues like very red eyes, di­lat­ed pupils, im­paired

An em­ploy­ee who con­tin­u­al­ly for­gets dead­lines, makes poor de­ci­sions, be­comes ag­i­tat­ed of­ten and eas­i­ly will at­tract the at­ten­tion of fel­low em­ploy­ees. The ob­serv­ing em­ploy­ee needs to un­der­stand what to do once these ob­ser­va­tions are con­sis­tent. Through train­ing, he or she can be in­formed about the im­por­tance of doc­u­ment­ing these ob­ser­va­tions and about pro­ce­dur­al guide­lines which will not lead to work­place mis­un­der­stand­ings and/or mis­for­tune. In­stead of feel­ing a sense of be­tray­al, the ob­serv­ing em­ploy­ee will come to re­alise, through train­ing that he or she is help­ing her fel­low em­ploy­ee and keep­ing her job and her or­gan­i­sa­tion se­cure.

Em­ploy­ers can pro­vide for­mal group train­ing ses­sions for em­ploy­ees and su­per­vi­sors who can al­so ac­cess in­di­vid­ual con­sul­ta­tions through em­ploy­ee as­sis­tance pro­grammes that are avail­able in many or­gan­i­sa­tions where sub­stance abuse poli­cies ex­ist.Top man­age­ment can show their in­ter­est by at­tend­ing these train­ing sem­i­nars and by send­ing clear mes­sages that the fo­cus is on pre­vent­ing not pun­ish­ing. These mes­sages can be shared through com­pa­ny newslet­ters, bul­letin boards, ini­tial job in­ter­views, ori­en­ta­tion and train­ing ses­sions. This at­ti­tude can be overt­ly pro­ject­ed and can be­come part of the or­gan­i­sa­tion's cul­ture which lets em­ploy­ees know that they are val­ued.

A great deal of work must be done to cre­ate a non-threat­en­ing en­vi­ron­ment for those who may not read­i­ly ad­mit that they are in need of as­sis­tance and for those who may want to as­sist those em­ploy­ees who ap­pear to be at risk for sub­stance abuse. Con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is key, along with the prac­tice of mu­tu­al re­spect, if em­ploy­ees are to be en­cour­aged to seek help for them­selves or to in­ter­vene on be­half of their peers. In ad­di­tion to un­der­stand­ing the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is­sue, su­per­vi­sors and em­ploy­ees have to be ed­u­cat­ed to un­der­stand that it takes a very good, car­ing em­ploy­er or su­per­vi­sor to recog­nise and want to help a trou­bled em­ploy­ee be­fore it is too late.Con­tin­ues next week...

Dr Starke is a lifestyle coach/coun­sel­lor and an OD (or­gan­i­sa­tion­al de­vel­op­ment) con­sul­tant who pro­vides work­shops/sem­i­nars for em­ploy­ees and su­per­vi­sors. Please con­tact her at thes­tark­e­re­al­i­ty@gmail.com or www.ct­clifeskills.com.