The Biggest Thing Workplace Drug Testing Taught Me Had Nothing to Do with Testing

When I first started working in workplace drug testing almost a decade ago, I thought I knew exactly what my role was. A business would contact me, I'd attend site, carry out the tests, explain the results and complete the paperwork.

The client had asked for workplace drug testing, I'd provided it, and everyone went away happy.

Or so I thought.

It didn't take long before I realised that the test itself was rarely the biggest challenge. In fact, the difficult part usually started the moment I handed the results over. Managers would look at one another, unsure what to do next. Policies hadn't been reviewed for years. Different people within the same organisation had different ideas about how the situation should be handled, and sometimes there wasn't a clear process at all.

The more businesses I worked with, the more I noticed a pattern. They weren't struggling because the science behind workplace drug testing was wrong or because the testing process was unreliable. They were struggling because they'd placed all of their focus on the test itself, while giving very little thought to everything that surrounded it. Somewhere along the way, the test had become the strategy, when in reality it should only ever have been one part of it.

That changed the way I looked at my own role. I stopped thinking of myself as someone who simply carried out workplace drug testing and started asking a different question. Why were businesses waiting until someone was sitting in front of them with a positive result before deciding what they were actually going to do?

It never made sense to me. No organisation would install CCTV without deciding who monitors the cameras or what happens when an incident is captured. Nobody would fit a fire alarm without having an evacuation plan. Yet many employers introduced workplace drug testing without first putting the policies, procedures and management framework in place that would allow them to use it effectively.

That realisation became the starting point for what I now call the Better Testing pathway.

Despite the name, it was never about changing the test itself. The testing technology already exists and, when used correctly, does exactly what it is designed to do. What needed to change was the thinking around it. Better policies. Better trained managers. Better conversations. Better decisions. Better support where appropriate. In other words, a better system.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I learnt was that every test result represents a person, not just a process. Sometimes that person has made a poor decision. Sometimes they're struggling. Sometimes they're taking prescribed medication. Sometimes they've done nothing wrong at all. Treating every situation exactly the same doesn't make an organisation fair; it simply removes judgement from a process that often requires it.

That's why I believe workplace drug testing should never be viewed as the end goal. Used properly, it's an incredibly valuable tool. Used on its own, it's simply information. It's the decisions that follow, the culture within the organisation and the systems that support those decisions that make the real difference.

Looking back, the biggest thing workplace drug testing ever taught me had nothing to do with testing.

It taught me that the best way to protect a business is also the best way to protect its people. For me, those two things have never been opposites. They've always been the same objective viewed from different sides.

If one of your workplace substance misuse decisions was challenged at an Employment Tribunal tomorrow, would you be confident that your policies, procedures and decision-making process would stand up to scrutiny?