Employment Screening Services provides comprehensive employment background check services, and if you are ever in need of an answer to a verification question, don’t be afraid to reach out! We work with companies and organizations all over the country to ensure they are making the best hiring decision possible. To help provide the best diagnostics results for our clients, we partner with Quest Diagnostics to ensure that everything is as seamless and user-friendly as possible. Recently, Quest Diagnostics created a helpful tool that helps to measure “Drug Testing Savings.” You may not think that drug testing helps save your company money, but it does, and we hope to help you better understand HOW.
Here are 3 Things That Impact Drug Testing ROI (Reasonable Return on Investment)
Your Industry
Depending on your company’s industry, you may or may not be REQUIRED to perform drug testing. Some industries require pre-employment drug screening, but some don’t. The positivity rate of one industry varies from another. According to Quest’s Drug Testing Index for 2021, both the general workforce and “safety-sensitive” positions increased Year over Year, and continue to trend upward. The general workforce positivity rate increased 1.8% over 2020 but was also 12% higher than in 2017. This is the highest to date. The overall positivity rate in safety-sensitive workers remained somewhat even, but Marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamine positivity rates increased in 2021.
Marijuana increased by 8.9%, amphetamines increased by 7.8% and cocaine increased by 5%.
Bottom line, whether you are mandated to drug test for compliance or not, the low cost of drug testing can be covered by leveraging drug testing to help battle turnover, workers comp claims, and employee turnover.
Training & Recruiting Cost
The cost of hiring an employee is not 0. Regardless of what your company does, it needs a dedicated and healthy workforce to operate at the highest level. When you disregard potential drug use and/or abuse, you run the risk of turning and burning employees. Employees need to understand that it is a privilege to work for your organization, not a right, and with that privilege comes responsibility.
It’s a good idea to assess what costs need to be factored in when looking at your turnover. If you were going to use the Quest Drug Testing ROI Calculator to determine ROI, you’ll need to know what your rough Turnover rate is. To calculate, you can look at the number of employees who have left, divided by the average number of employees and multiply that by 100.
Workers Compensation
Obviously, the more accidents occur on the job of your company, the more your workers’ compensation will be. The cost of your workers’ compensation obligation is a function of 3 things.
- The average cost of injuries in your class of business
- The frequency and severity of recent employee injuries in your business
- The track record of your insurance company
There are legalities for those who don’t have a drug testing program in place, as OSHA has stated that you can’t necessarily drug test someone AFTER an accident in retaliation of a work-related injury or illness report, but states in a memo from 2018,
“The Department believes that many employers who implement safety incentive programs and/or conduct post-incident drug testing do so to promote workplace safety and health. In addition, evidence that the employer consistently enforces legitimate work rules (whether or not an injury or illness is reported) would demonstrate that the employer is serious about creating a culture of safety, not just the appearance of reducing rates.”
We recommend you head over to Quest Diagnostics to review your potential Drug Testing ROI to help you better understand your personal business’s benefits to drug testing. Let us know what you find! If you ever have any questions about what you should be, or could be doing better to maximize your return on drug testing, just give us a call or fill out our contact form! We’re always available to help you make better hiring decisions!
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