Drug And Alcohol Policy At The Global Level

Development of alcohol and drug policy for the workplace

Describe about the Drug and Alcohol Policy at The Global Level?

The case scenario of Alex is one of the very common cases in the workplace legislation. It is mentioned that with passage of time Alex has got involved in the habits of drinking alcohol and such habits have led her to be quite a different person at her workplace.

With reference to the given case of Alex, there are certain obligations as well as liabilities of the employers that is the school authority and Board members in context to abilities of Alex to perform her job. Emphasis is to be given on health as well as safety legislation (Stockwell, 2004).

The higher school authority or the employer must along with the cooperation of employees and other staffs and representatives develop a written organizational policy upon alcohol as well as drugs at the workplace. At situations feasible, there must be proper development of effective policies in cooperation with that of medical experts as well as professionals who specifically deal with all problems related to drug and alcohol.

The policy that would be developed by the organizational management needs to include some important information such as measures to lessen alcohol or drug-related issues at the workplace by means of some effective personnel management, enhanced work conditions, effective employment practices, effective work arrangements, and also proper consultation amidst management as well as workers or their representatives (MANDERSON, 1999). There must be measures to restrict any kind of availability of such addictive substances within the school premises. The policy must include all kinds of measures related to identification as well as treatment or rehabilitation of staffs suffering from such issues. Rules must be prescribed that governs conduct at the workplace regarding such habits, and violation of which may lead to disciplinary procedures or even dismissal. As referred to the given case of Alex, the matter became worse due to the lack of such workplace policy related to drug or alcohol intake and problems. Initially, Alex used to be one of the most cooperative and effective staffs who delivered her best services in cooking to the primary school (Miller, 2005). However, with gradual passage of time it had been identified that her behavioral conducts and performances towards her organization worsened due to the lack of strict disciplinary measures. The organizational employer, employees, staffs and other representatives must jointly ascertain the impacts of drug as well as alcohol use within the school premises (Van De Voorde, Paauwe and Van Veldhoven, 2010). The organization is that of a primary school where children and kids come to acquire education. Their parents send them to school with the dream of becoming the most able person in life and brighten up their own lives. But, with such acts and occurrences within the school premise would be considered to be the most shameful acts that may harm the future of the children. Moreover, the environment would not be favorable at all for young children to grow and gather educational learning. Thus, the school authority has a huge responsibility to take serious actions and measures with the context of such mentioned issue of Alex (Lexchin, 2012). Where indications exist that certain job conditions can contribute towards alcohol as well as drug issues, employers of the organization in cooperation with the employees and representatives must act reasonably and identify as well as take effective and preventive steps of remedial actions.

The higher authority of the mentioned primary school must not formally or even informally support any kind of practices or behavior that incites, promotes or even facilitates the unwanted use of such addictive substances within the school premises. No staff of the organization must support such kind of activities within the premises (Rittle, 2015).

When any employee or staff discloses any previous history of being engaged into drug or alcohol habits to the employer, immediately the employer must avoid exposing such an individual to any work condition similar to that in the past and that leading to serious problems.

The habit of consuming alcohol or drug is simply illegal according to recent legislative changes. As highlighted in the given case scenario, the ultimate challenges within workplace arise when such intake becomes abusive or even depends upon addiction as well as dependence (Vassie, 2000). This inevitably leads to higher health expenses for illness, reduced productivity or performances, increased absenteeism, and more disability claims. These are to be noted by the school authority in this case. The conducts of Alex have become simply unacceptable with the school premise as not only she suffers badly but the staffs who work around her get affected passively. They lose concentration and interest in work in the long run (Hyde et al., 2013).

The school authority bears a liability to consult Alex and other staffs who work with her in the same department and consider prohibiting Alex from consuming alcohol in workplaces or even arriving at the premise after consumption of alcohol. The employer needs to consider withdrawal alcohol for expense account reimbursement. The restriction must be applied to all the employees and staffs of the organization and the policy must be unbiased.

Education, knowledge and training sessions related to drug and alcohol consumption must be conducted for promoting safety as well as health at the workplace. These programs must be directed at every staff, and must contain information upon psychological as well as physical impacts of such habits (Miller, 2005). Training is essential in order to help the staffs with such habits as Alex. In this case, the employer of the organization had a liability to focus on the training session where Alex could have given adequate level of learning sessions and training by her supervisors and proper counseling would have been effective. This would have enforced Alex to quit the habit gradually.

Health promotion is considered to be the act of faith and must not be dismissed for any cause. The physical as well as mental well-being of employees at work is considered to the sheer responsibility of the employer which in this case is that of the school authority. Such promotional activities are sure to support as well as enhance health and safety within organization (Zheng et al., 2015).

Corporate Practices

It is a common phenomenon that most employers view workplace stress as the key health-associated problem that they face, although very few policies exist to manage such situations. Most of the practices included the provision of formally written guidance and advice and not proactive interventions. As referred to in the given case scenario of Alex, she needs immediate care and concern of the organization (Anderson, 2006). It is to be recommended that Alex needs some kind of exposure to approaches that may enable her cope with the stress situations that she had been undergoing that made her get more and more addicted. Here it may be mentioned that some human resource management strategies exist to manage consumption of alcohol or stress by the fellow staffs like Alex within the workplace premises. There must be measures to restrict any kind of availability of such addictive substances within the school premises. The policy must include all kinds of measures related to identification as well as treatment or rehabilitation of staffs suffering from such issues (Bacchi, 2015). Rules must be prescribed that governs conduct at the workplace regarding such habits, and violation of which may lead to disciplinary procedures or even dismissal. Alex must be provided with formal session of treatment or recovery program that may include time period of after-care session that can act as crucial aspect of the process of assistance. When any experienced professional determines that a staff is effectively pursuing the process of treatment, or even successfully completed treatment, the staff as also in case of Alex, must be offered a transfer opportunity while returning to the previous position of organization. The employer needs to consider withdrawal alcohol for expense account reimbursement. The restriction must be applied to all the employees and staffs of the organization and the policy must be unbiased (D’Cruz and Noronha, 2010). Thus, the school authority has a huge responsibility to take serious actions and measures with the context of such mentioned issue of Alex. Where indications exist that certain job conditions can contribute towards alcohol as well as drug issues, employers of the organization in cooperation with the employees and representatives must act reasonably and identify as well as take effective and preventive steps of remedial actions.

This approach generally involves the circulation of notes of guidance which helps in the promotion of awareness of the specific health advices or the targeted poster campaigns like that of HIV, smoking awareness and nutritious and healthy eating.

Job placement of addicted staffs

Some of the employees or the employers can participate in the national initiatives or can also help in the promtion of wider health issues related campaigns (Hancock, 1996). The issues may include topics like that of no smoking day, or some broader aspects like look after your heart form of campaigns.

The provision of health screening provides the employers to provide permanent or temporary reach towards the facilities which provide health screening. The screenings may include diseases like that of coronary heart diseases, diabetes, cholesterol screening, breast screening, prostate cancers, osteoporosis or other forms of cancers (Hill, 2003).

Some specific forms of health specific initiatives or screening programmes can be held and supported by the employers for the provision of health education. The instructions may be in the form of class based instructions, or the use of clinics for the wellness of men and women, or awareness facilities (Zoellner, 2009).

Risk analysis audits as part of the statutory obligations under the department of health and safety legislations or the employers can also raise the awareness of health issues in work practiceas a sign of good practice by the help of regular risk analysis or audits. The audits may include the physical working environments like the temperature, workstations or the lightings at the workplace as well as the psychological wellbeing or the potential source of the stress at workplace (Hughes, 2007).

The increase in the number of policies that are being developed by the employers can be helpful on topics like health and safety. The topics may include smoking, alcohol, drug use, stress management, substance abuse, violence or bullying at workplace. Some of the employees have written it mainly for defensive reasons as the basis of design of proactive initiatives as well as workplace health interventions.

In smoking cessation the employers may run some particular sessions which might be aimed at the employees who have the desire to stop smoking. The sessions may be in the form of formal presentations as well as in group support or monitoring.

To manage stress among the employees individual or collective support from the trained counsellors for the employees who had a stressful workload or even due to changes in work load can be provided with self-management techniques or strategies.

Some of the organisations also help to support, fund or sponsor employees so that they can have access to special support for alcohol or drug dependency. The support can also be provided by the line managers of the staff.

Even if we leave aside the measures which are specifically designed for the purpose of addressing aspects of workplace stress, some of the organisations also provide supplementary support to the employees through the counselling and advice services (Hyde et al., 2013). The programmes related to employee assistance can be very generic in nature and are able to provide guidance on a range of issues, which might include personal or financial difficulties re3lated to family, childcare or legal problems.

References

Anderson, P. (2006). Drug And Alcohol Policy At The Global Level. Drug and Alcohol Review, 25(6), pp.485-487.

Bacchi, C. (2015). Problematizations in Alcohol Policy: WHO’s “Alcohol Problems”. Contemporary Drug Problems, 42(2), pp.130-147.

D’Cruz, P. and Noronha, E. (2010). The exit coping response to workplace bullying. Employee Relations, 32(2), pp.102-120.

Hancock, T. (1996). Models of health: choosing the right model—a commentary on ‘Models of Health: pervasive, persuasive and politically charged’ by Trudi Collins (1995). Health Promot Int, 11(1), pp.64-66.

Hill, F. (2003). Towards a new model for health promotion? An analysis of complementary and alternative medicine and models of health promotion. Health Education Journal, 62(4), pp.369-380.

Hughes, C. (2007). Evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence? The role of evidence in the development and implementation of the Illicit Drug Diversion Initiative. Drug & Alcohol Revs., 26(4), pp.363-368.

Hyde, P., Sparrow, P., Boaden, R. and Harris, C. (2013). High performance HRM: NHS employee perspectives. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 27(3), pp.296-311.

Lexchin, J. (2012). Models for financing the regulation of pharmaceutical promotion. Globalization and Health, 8(1), p.24.

MANDERSON, D. (1999). Symbolism and racism in drug history and policy. Drug and Alcohol Review, 18(2), pp.179-186.

Miller, P. (2005). Harm reduction ethics: a promising basis for drug policy. Drug and Alcohol Review, 24(6), pp.553-554.

Rittle, C. (2015). Multicultural Nursing: Providing Better Employee Care. Workplace Health & Safety.

Stockwell, T. (2004). Australian alcohol policy and the public interest: a brief report card. Drug and Alcohol Review, 23(4), pp.377-379.

Van De Voorde, K., Paauwe, J. and Van Veldhoven, M. (2010). Predicting business unit performance using employee surveys: monitoring HRM-related changes. Human Resource Management Journal, 20(1), pp.44-63.

Vassie, L. (2000). Managing homeworking: health and safety responsibilities. Employee Relations, 22(6), pp.540-554.

Zheng, C., Molineux, J., Mirshekary, S. and Scarparo, S. (2015). Developing individual and organisational work-life balance strategies to improve employee health and wellbeing. Employee Relations, 37(3), pp.354-379.

Zoellner, D. (2009). Creating Shared Mental Models for Evidence-Based Mental Health Promotion in Schools. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 2(3), pp.15-29.