How Fitness for Duty Policies are defined

Fitness for Duty as defined by major safety oriented organizations is the ability of an individual to perform a task completely, safely and effectively. This particular definition has been a major consideration to several organizations—both big and small—particularly to those which operate in ‘high risk’ environments such as the aviation, mining, transport and construction industries.

All organisations, which fall under these categories, strive hard to provide a work place that is safe, drug-free and efficient so that the employees can carry out their assigned tasks safely, completely and efficiently. To bring this statement to reality, there have to be policies (called Fitness for Duty policies) in place that stand as guidelines to both the employers and the employees in achieving the motto.

How Fitness for Duty policies is defined?

Fitness for Duty policies are usually defined by:

• Analysing the potential threats and to the extent those threats can affect the organization
• Listing of the various prohibited substances that contribute to those potential threats
• Implementation of various Alcohol Drug Testing procedures to identify the existence of these prohibited substances inside the individual system.
• Strategies to carry out the retention/exit procedures for an individual in case the tests show positive results.

Factors responsible for framing Fitness for Duty policies

There might be several fitness factors that degrade the performance and productivity of an employee impacting the company in the long run. And these factors might be different for different working environments. But there are three major factors that are common across all the working environments despite their nature of work. If proper Workplace Drug Testing Laws are put in place, controlling the mishaps at the work place can be as easy as grabbing a cheese.

What are those three major common factors?

Fatigue, Drugs and Alcohol are the three major common factors affecting the overall performance and productivity of an employee and these factors are common across all the working environments—be it mining, be it aviation, be it construction or be it even the transport environments.

How Fatigue?

Fatigue revolves round the concept of ‘lack of sleep’. Lack of sleep for an individual in an organization is generally caused due to excess working hours and the need to put extra effort in order to meet the stringent deadlines.

How Drugs?

Drug can be of two types—prescribed and non-prescribed. Excess intake of drugs can cause instability in the mind and slowly paralyzes the ability to take right decisions at the right time. The non-prescribed drugs can include marijuana, cocaine, black sugar and others that addicts an individual. Prescribed drugs too, unlike how they sound, when taken in excess can cause instability in the employee’s mind.

How Alcohol?

According to a research, 28 per cent of all the drivers who were killed in road accidents in 1997 died because of excess alcohol consumption. Similarly, alcohol in a workplace slows down the performance of the employee resulting in poor work quality, increased absenteeism and at times creates fights among the peers.

Employees under the influence of these factors may be unsafe both for themselves and for the organization. Proper policies to locate and reduce these hazards can ensure a secure ambience to those ‘safety oriented’ environments.