As a manager of personnel, you expect a drug-free workforce, not only for legal compliance but for job performance. Unfortunately, life goes on off the clock, and even your best employees can fall victim to addictions that carry on into work hours. Whether it’s cocaine, opioids, or even alcohol, substance abuse can drastically affect safety and productivity in the workplace. To know when to step in, learn how to recognize some of the various signs of substance abuse in employees.

Frequent Unexcused Absences

Whether you have a rigid punch-in-punch-out approach to attendance or take a more casual tack, the bottom line is that you need your employees at work and working each day. When employees’ attendance starts to slip to the point where even a laissez-faire attendance policy can’t excuse a lack of timely appearances, you have cause for concern. Frequent tardiness or absences are often indicative of lifestyle issues that conflict with the rigors of regular work. Whether it’s school or work, you need to be there to succeed.

Poor Performance

In tandem with poor attendance often comes poor performance. A worker doesn’t have to crash a piece of construction equipment to show that they’re suffering from substance abuse while they’re on the job. Poor work performance can reveal itself in missed deadlines, decreased productivity, or even an influx of slapdash, hastily completed work that makes more work for others.

Change in Mood

Over time, you get to know your employees and their various personalities and temperaments. Together, the different character traits they bring to the table make for a well-rounded workforce. It should be notable, then, when a once-gregarious employee becomes sullen and reserved, or someone you relied on for an even keel becomes edgy and erratic. If you notice marked personality changes in employees that you might reasonably attribute to substance abuse, it’s worth checking in to see why.

Uncharacteristic Financial Decisions

Drug addiction is not only a physically deleterious condition but a financially costly one as well. Over time, funding a habit will begin to manifest itself in a person’s financial status, which you as an employer may be able to witness. You may see an employee who was once fiscally prudent start making out-of-character requests, such as advances on paychecks or premature withdrawals from 401(k) plans or IRAs. You may discover secondhand that an employee has been asking co-workers for loans. While this doesn’t indicate a drug addiction in and of itself—immediate financial hardship can strike any of us at any time—it can be a warning sign of substance abuse when it occurs in concert with other suspicious changes.

Upon identifying any of the various signs of substance abuse in employees, what should you do as a manager? While it may seem like an imposition on your employees’ privacy, if you have reasonable suspicion that employees are abusing drugs and alcohol to such an extent that it affects their job performance, a drug test may be necessary. Our services can help you to order a drug test online and identify the root causes of performance issues in your workforce.