Last updated : November 11, 2024
Drug testing seems important, but many business owners and managers view it as wasteful. It’s not immediately clear why—they are willing to spend money on marketing, investment, expansion, production, and other costs. If time was spent weighing the costs against the benefits, it’s clear drug testing is a smart investment in a wide variety of ways.
A productivity boost
There are some clear benefits to regularly drug-testing employees. First of all, the employees will be more productive and less likely to be absent. It also improves worker safety, because they make fewer mistakes. These add up to better morale for the workforce and more reliability and productivity. Keeping drugs out of the workplace and maintaining consequences for employees who break the policy serve to reinforce the drug-free policy that the business holds, and both the managers and the employees feel the benefits.
Weigh the costs
At the same time, however, it is important to note that there are significant costs to drug-testing programs—especially when it’s handled improperly. Drug-testing equipment costs money, and the company will need to pay someone to oversee the tests. Because drug testing is a health matter, there are insurance complications in the cost as well, and this will vary by test type. The manager also needs to get a location, which can be onsite or offsite. The testing takes time- employees will need to wait around to get tested when they could otherwise be working. In addition, there is legal risk involved. Poor handling of a drug test could expose the company to a lawsuit, so they need to invest in pre-emptive legal protection. The potential fallout from a suit is too great to permit the risk to be significant, so this legal hedge is necessary. Finally, there may be the odd employees who dislike being tested, but in almost every case, there’s an obvious reason that is better off discovered through the testing process than allowed to continue.
Discover efficiency for the positive ROI
It’s clear now why there are some who think drug-testing is too expensive, even if it’s faulty reasoning. The list of costs appears insurmountable. It is not easy for a drug-testing program to demonstrate enough value to justify the investment. Unless…
There is one type of testing that is changing the rules of that game. All-in-one mobile drug testing companies truly make the proposition a positive one. They significantly reduce costs because they are a one-stop shop. There is no need to deal with a brick-and-mortar lab. The risk is liability is also much lower, because the testing happens onsite. That also eliminates the chain of custody as a source of concern, because there are no handoffs of samples. The mobile organization can provide a customized solution based on the local jurisdiction and the needs of each customer. They are also much more available—no more dealing with the odd hours of a local lab or waiting on them. Mobile service providers tend to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Employees won’t sit in waiting rooms costing you productivity and pay. Each employee gets tested according to your schedule and then can be immediately back to work.
It’s necessary, so make it count
The truth is that managers cannot afford not to test. The risk from having untested workers is high, especially when it comes to workplace safety. It is the cost of testing that makes managers leery to carry it out, not the lack of upside. Mobile labs alleviate this concern by significantly cutting down on those costs across several dimensions. A major part of the reason these labs are so attractive is that they remove so much liability in addition to delivering lower monetary costs and greater convenience. It is a simple solution to a potentially complex and costly problem.
