Employees' Attitudes toward Fitness-for-Duty Testing (2000)

Although workplace drug testing has become common organizational practice (Greenberg et al., 1995), there is lack of definitive evidence of its effectiveness at achieving organizational safety or productivity (see Cropanzano and Konovsky, 1993; Harris and Heft, 1992; Macdonald, 1997; Morgan, 1991; Normand et al., 1994; Thompson et al., 1991). That is, despite conventional wisdom, drug testing has not been shown to have predictive validity as measure of organizational effectiveness (Hoffman and Lovler, 1989; Vodanovich and Reyna, 1988). A fundamental problem with drug tests is their inability to detect drug use in time to prevent it from causing harm. Testing can only distinguish between someone who has used or been exposed to drug and someone who has not; it cannot tell when the former took the drug, how much was taken, how frequently this person has taken this drug, or the effect of the drug on the user (Axel, 1990; Lundberger, 1986; Morgan, 1987). By the time an employee's test result has been interpreted as positive, any drug-impaired behavior would already have taken its toll. On the other hand, the metabolites in person s urine that produce positive test result do not necessarily mean the person cannot work, as any effects of the drug could have long worn off by the time the test was administered. As explained by Orentlicher, a test that is positive for drug use may be falsely positive for drug impairment (1990: 1039). In addition to the inability of drug tests to determine impairment, testing has raised moral questions. Specifically, it has been argued that even if employees are using drugs, so long as they perform responsibly their organizations need not know about their drug use, and that if employees' performance is compromised by drugs, employers may rightfully discipline or dismiss them, but still do not need to know the root of their impeded performance (DesJardins and Duska, 1987). Many have criticized drug testing for intruding on employee privacy (see, for example, Caste, 1992; Flaig, 1990; Haas, 1990; Hanson, 1988; Lewis, 1990; Maltby, 1990; Orendicher, 1990; Pavlovich, 1989). Indeed, research suggests that drug testing may especially lead to negative attitudes and behaviors when it is perceived as invasive (Hanson, 1990; Latessa et al., 1988; Masters et at., 1988; Murphy et al,1991; Murphy et al., 1990; Smith, 1988; Stecher and Ross, 1992; Stone and Kotch, 1989; Stone and Vine, 1989). Because there is considerable evidence that drug testing can have potentially negative impact on employees' attitudes and behaviors, and that it cannot detect impaired performance, its usefulness as management tool is arguable. Some have asserted that workplace drug testing prevails in the United States--despite the absence of evidence of its usefulness for enhancing safety and productivity--for sociopolitical and symbolic reasons, rather than rational practical ones (see Borg and Arnold, 1997; Cavanaugh and Prasad, 1994; Guthrie and Olian, 1991; Karper et al,1994; Thompson et at., 1991; Wisotsky, 1987; Zimmer and Jacobs, 1992). Indeed, drug testing is markedly less common in Canadian organizations (Jain et al., 1998). This article explores fitness-for-duty testing as possible alternative to drug testing. After describing fitness-for-duty testing and contrasting two commercial tests, manufacturers' and journalists' praise of these tests is assessed by examining the results of field study in which employees who take fitness-for-duty tests at their workplace responded to questionnaires about their attitudes toward these tests. FITNESS-FOR-DUTY TESTING Compared with biological testing, performance-based fitness-for-duty (FFD) testing is potentially less invasive to employees and better suited to identifying the substandard work that should ultimately concern managers, before it occurs. In organizations that use FFD testing, the ability, or fitness, of employees performing safety-sensitive jobs (those whose mistakes can have tragic as well as expensive consequences) is checked at the beginning of their work shift. …