Changing Times, Changing Workplaces

How does the shift to remote work impact your company’s evolving strategies for implementing effective drug testing policies for your remote employees?

• By Yvette Farnsworth Baker
• Mar 01, 2024

One of the biggest disruptions to the workplace in recent years was the seismic and almost instantaneous shift to working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By June 2020, less than 30 percent of U.S. employees were working on their business premises. While at the time most people anticipated that changes would be temporary, after a few years of uncertainty one thing is clear: remote working will be a significant part of the future.

The Future of the Workplace

Recent years have alleviated some major concerns about working from home. For one, the vast majority of employers and employees have reported that productivity has not suffered. In a 2020 survey, 86 percent of respondents reported that they were fully productive while working from home. However, many executives still cite concerns about remote work productivity, and are implementing return-to-work policies for at least a few days a week. Additionally, 78 percent of office workers reported in the same survey that they had the resources they needed to work successfully from home, despite the fact that remote work sprang on most industries rather abruptly in 2020. 

It is also clear that employees want to continue to work remotely into the future. Seventy-six percent of respondents in the above-cited survey want to work from home a few days per week. Similarly, 89 percent of executives believe that most or many employees will work from home at least one day per week on a permanent basis.

Companies are taking notice of the shift and its long-term ramifications. At the end of 2020, 87 percent of executives planned to make changes to their company’s real estate portfolio in 2021. In one example, retailer REI announced that it would sell its brand new, unused corporate campus in Washington, so that the company could “lean into remote working as an engrained, supported, and normalized model.” As of September 2023, average office occupancy rate in the top 10 cities in the U.S. was at only 47.3 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

How Employees Will Connect

As working from home is here to stay, employers are looking for new ways to incorporate collaboration and teamwork into the new normal. Around half of U.S. executives are looking to invest in conference rooms with enhanced virtual connectivity (57 percent), communal space in the office (48 percent), and unassigned seating (45 percent). The number one purpose of the workplace now, according to employees, is collaboration. 

Businesses are relying on technology to help connect workplace teams in the meantime. In 2020, Zoom had over 300 million meeting participants per day, Google Meets had over 100 million per day, and Microsoft Teams reported 75 million per day, and these numbers have continued growing. As of 2022, Microsoft Teams reported 270 million users per day. And despite preferences for collaborating in person, 87 percent of remote employees report they feel more connected to their co-workers by using videoconferencing.

The Future of Drug Testing with Remote Employees

Employers can and should continue to implement drug testing policies even when employees work remotely. Beyond safety risks, substance-abusing employees cost employers in healthcare costs and higher insurance premiums, loss of productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Across all industries, the average cost per year of a substance-abusing employee is $7,000 in costs outside of workplace accidents. Substance abusers perform at only 67 percent of their potential – making them one-third less productive than their non-substance-abusing co-workers. Employers should also be concerned about data security and company information privacy when considering the risks posed by substance-abusing employees working from home, as lapses in judgment is often a major factor in data breach.

Employers have many options available to them in implementing workplace drug testing with remote employees. Employees working from home can still be required to report to a collection site for sample collection. Employers might even consider looking into mobile collection services. Employees can also be required to report to work on-site for the purpose of oral fluid collection for drug testing.

Additionally, telehealth is available now for sample collection. Oral fluid testing kits can be sent to an employee. The employee can then log on to a videoconference platform for an observed collection of their sample. A trained observer monitors the collection, and the sample is then sent in for testing. Alternatively, a video recording of the collection can be reviewed at a later time to ensure collection accuracy. 

Employers will need to review and likely revamp their workplace drug testing policies to specifically address remote employees. Firstly, employees working from home should be directly informed that they are subject to drug testing. Policies with reasonable suspicion testing should define ways that suspicion is to be determined in a remote work situation. Factors such as decreased productivity, absenteeism, erratic work times, or signs of impairment observed on conference calls or video conferencing are some ways to include signs of impairment for off-site employees. Policies might also address timelines that remote workers are required to adhere to for drug testing. 

Employers should always be sure to consult knowledgeable professionals in order to verify that any changes to their policies comply with state and federal law requirements. There may be limitations on testing methodologies, collections, and sample types, etc., that an employer will need to consider.

Conclusion

Working from home will be a significant part of the future of the workplace. Remote work will not eliminate the risks and costs of substance abuse, and employers will be well-served to take the time now to consider how to implement workplace drug testing most effectively with remote employees.

This article originally appeared in the February/March 2024 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.