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Employment-related drug testing

by Winfred Jr. Arthur , Dennis Doverspike

In recent years, the pervasiveness of drug and alcohol abuse in the United States has become a growing concern. In an attempt to minimize the potential costs and ramifications of substance abuse, organizations have initiated programs of both pre-hire and incumbent drug testing. In the field of personnel and human resource management, many discussions of drug testing have taken a perspective that treats drug testing as analogous to the use of other selection devices such as employment tests. This approach to the consideration of drug testing is predicated on the assumption, implicit or explicit, that drug testing is comparable to other forms of devices for making employment decisions. However, it is important to recognize that there are certain idiosyncratic attributes of drug tests and testing that distinguish them from other predictors and their use. Furthermore, these characteristics can have several important implications for the applicant, employee, human resource practitioner, and organization. Therefore, the objective of this article is to identify and discuss these idiosyncratic characteristics, noting their implications for the enterprise of drug testing and, thereby, sensitizing the public personnel management practitioner to these issues.

Variety of Testing Types

Just as it is problematic to consider drug testing as simply another type of selection device, it would be an oversimplification to treat drug testing as consisting of a homogenous set of procedures. Rather, drug testing represents a broad set of possible interventions or testing mechanisms. Examples of some of the different types of tests used are presented in Table 1. As Table 1 reveals, drug testing uniquely incorporates a wide variety of techniques that differ on several dimensions such as their validity and utility, sophistication and cost, intrusiveness, and acceptance by applicants and incumbents. Furthermore, some of these techniques, such as biochemical tests, are unlikely to be included in a traditional selection battery, but might be included in a pre- or post-hire medical examination. Other methods, such as the use of personality tests, may simply represent a new use for a traditional selection instrument.

Negative Reactions and Resistance to Drug Testing

Negative reactions from applicants or incumbents may accompany all types of testing.(1) However, drug testing seems especially likely to lead to resistance. This type of testing may have low face validity for some individuals who do not believe, for instance, that weekend substance use affects their job performance during the week. For others, it may represent a severe intrusion into, and violation of, privacy.

Recent research has confirmed the frequent presence of negative incumbent, applicant, and prospective employee reactions to testing.(2) Some factors that have been found to influence employee reactions include: job characteristics (e.g., likelihood of danger due to drug impairment);(3) type of drug used(;4) the personnel action taken against employees testing positive,(5) the chance to appeal; the availability of advance notice; and whether random or for-cause testing is implemented.(6)

Another unique feature of drug testing that has been found to be associated with fairly strong negative reactions is its routine and repeated use for post-employment purposes. This characteristic is in contrast to most other predictors which are typically used for pre-employment purposes only. The negativity associated with post-employment drug testing is highlighted by the results of a survey of railroad workers, in which Hanson(7) found that 63 percent of respondents thought that pre-employment testing was justifiable, but only 16 percent agreed that random testing of current employees was fair.

Furthermore, unlike other testing procedures that may require limited justification to test takers, this issue of negativity underscores the importance of explaining the merits of a drug testing program to employees. The potential negative reactions and responses of both current and prospective employees to drug testing should be of particular concern to the public personnel management practitioner. Even if drug testing were to lead to lower levels of drug use, the testing programs could still have an overall negative effect on the organization by creating unfavorable employee attitudes and work behaviors, or by creating negative public relations. Thus, steps should be taken to ensure that drug testing programs are perceived as fair by all affected constituencies.

Perceptions of fairness are influenced by both procedural and distributive justice factors. Procedural justice refers to the fairness of the decision-making process and distributive justice refers to the fairness of the decision outcome. Thus, a drug testing program is likely to be perceived as fair if: (a) there is a precipitating event (e.g., accidents) triggering the need for drug testing; that is, testing for-cause or with advanced notice, instead of random testing; (b) the job type or environment is such that the costs of mistakes are very high or there is a high level of safety sensitivity (e.g., public safety jobs); (c) test results are kept confidential; (d) decisions made on the basis of test results tend to be more rehabilitative and developmental instead of punitive; (e) there is an opportunity to appeal a positive result; (f) the program is designed with union participation; and (g) there is a sound social account or justification (e.g., safety reasons) given to employees for the need for the drug testing program.

We would like to note the potential paradox that while drug tests may be seen as intrusive and unnecessary by applicants or employees, employers may see them as inherently reasonable. Thus, organizations may see drug testing as a "social good" and regard traditional psychometric validation as unnecessary. It is, therefore, not unusual to find posters declaring a "Drug-Free Workplace," while, on the other hand, it is rare to find signs announcing a "High IQ" or a "High Conscientiousness/Low Neuroticism Workplace." Given the current social climate and attitudes towards substance abuse, it is not unreasonable to postulate that organizations may be more willing to engage in this form of testing even in the absence of strong supportive psychometric data.

Intrinsic Attributes Versus Specific Behaviors

The use of predictors such as general ability tests, personality measures, assessment centers, and even most honesty tests of recent vintage, is predicated on the assumption that the abilities, traits, and behaviors being measured are relatively stable, internal properties or characteristics of the test takers and that applicants cannot simply switch these abilities, traits, and behaviors on and off. Specifically, this model of test use assumes that scores obtained from these predictors or measures are indicators of underlying constructs, intrinsic attributes, or latent traits. This assumption is problematic for drug testing because individuals can change their substance use habits; drug tests are inherently measures of specific behaviors. Thus, for instance, an individual may not be a substance abuser at the time of pre-employment screening but could subsequently become one and vice versa.

Of course, it could be argued that drug tests have construct validity; that is they are measures of underlying constructs or intrinsic attributes, and not specific behaviors. Within this frame work, illicit substance use at any point in an individual's history is considered to be indicative of an inclination towards nonconformist attitudes and deviant behavior which may be related to negative work outcomes such as job instability, vandalism at work, and job separation.(8)

This approach is somewhat problematic because drug testing is being used as a surrogate measure of other constructs (e.g., as an indicator of social deviance) that are considered to be undesirable. This line of reasoning is illustrated by Viswesvaran, Ones, and Schmidt's(9) conclusion that "integrity tests can successfully be used to select job applicants with less potential for substance use. Conceptually, our results establish a link between alcohol and drug abuse and the personality variable of integrity, reliability, and conscientiousness." Contrary to this view, from a selection perspective, it is better to use more direct measures of the pertinent constructs (i.e., impairment and social deviance) instead of attempting tenuous indirect links via drug-test result outcomes.

Another weakness of this approach is the fact that the observable behavior is one that can be modified. In fact, this characteristic of drug testing is implicitly validated by (1) the existence of drug rehabilitation and employee assistance programs, whose primary objective is to change the very behavior which drug tests are designed to identify; (2) the robust finding that socio-demographic variables (such as marital status) play a major role in the prediction of illegal substance use;(10) and (3) arguments to minimize the advance notice to applicants or incumbents to preclude their refraining from drug usage to avoid detection of regular usage. An important empirical question then is, assuming pre-employment drug testing is valid, how stable are these validities over time?

The implications of this characteristic for the practitioner is that it is difficult to demonstrate the "validity" of drug tests using traditional validation and psychometric models. This means that when these models are used, the obtained validities or correlations between drug testing and the criterion of interest are going to be very small indeed. For example, Normand, Salyards, and Mahoney(11) obtained correlations of .10 and .05 between urinalysis results and absenteeism and involuntary separation, respectively. A similar correlation magnitude is reported by McDaniel(12) for the relationship between pre-employment drug testing and job suitability (r = .07). Thus, unlike other predictors, it would seem that HRM practitioners may have to rely more on social, economic (e.g., costs of health benefits, workman's compensation, claims and insurance), and even moral and legal (i.e., criminality) arguments to justify the use of drug testing for employment decision making purposes. Fortunately, this approach is further augmented by the fact that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (Section 105 (C) (3)) exempts drug testing from having to comply with the validity standards required of other forms of employment testing.

Dichotomous Nature of Decision

Predictors can generally be viewed as being used to either screen-in or screen-out applicants. Screen-out devices are those used to remove individuals from further consideration (i.e., look for disqualifying factors) while screen-in devices are those associated with positive workplace behaviors (i.e., look for desirable characteristics). Although it is recognized that some predictors can be used in both ways, it would seem that drug tests are used almost exclusively for screen-out purposes.

Consistent with this notion, performance on drug tests, unlike other predictors, is usually a dichotomous variable. "More" or "less" of a "score," in a relative sense, does not make a difference. Drug tests result in a dichotomous decision - pass or fail. For most other predictors, there is an assumption of an underlying linear relationship between the intrinsic attribute being measured and job performance. Even most honesty tests would appear to make this linear assumption. With drug tests, on the other hand, there is no such linear assumption, rather the presence of a drug above a certain level constitutes failure.

The dichotomous nature of drug testing affects our ability to compare it to other predictors. It is, therefore, not surprising to find that very few of the studies in the literature report validity coefficients - the common metric of association. Instead, most studies report percentages of positive and negative testers on some dependent variable. One result of this is that drug tests are conspicuously absent in the several published comparisons of alternative predictors.(13)

Complicating the issue is the relatively low base rate for failure of drug tests of approximately 15 percent.(14) Psychometrically, this translates into problems associated with attempts to demonstrate the predictive validity of drug testing because it is difficult to detect or predict any variable or condition when the base rate is low. This phenomenon may be partially responsible for the low to mixed results obtained for the criterion-related validity of drug testing.(15) These problems are similar to those encountered in attempts to validate integrity and honesty tests against theft in organizations.

The implications of this unique characteristic (i.e., dichotomous nature) for the HRM professional and public personnel management professional are similar to those presented for the first two idiosyncratic features. First, because of their screen-out and disqualifying nature/use, there is no intrinsic benefit to passing a drug test (i.e., one does not necessarily have "more" of the construct as would be the case on say an ability test which one could feel good about). Consequently, additional effort should be made to reduce the potential negativity associated with these tests. Steps that can be taken to accomplish this have been discussed in a preceding section. Second, as previously noted, because of their low base rate, dichotomous, and other psychometric properties, it is difficult to obtain even moderate correlations between drug tests and specified criteria of interest. Thus, it would seem that other means may have to be used to justify the use of drug testing for employment decision making purposes.

Legal, Criminal, Moral, and Social Issues

Another feature that distinguishes drug tests and testing from other predictors is the range of social, legal, criminal, moral, and public policy issues concerning substance abuse. For instance, drug tests are one of the few, if not the only predictor, where obtaining a failing score could be viewed as evidence of having committed an illegal act. Also, recent legislation such as the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) now cover recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, and require that organizations make reasonable attempts to accommodate these individuals along with others with disabilities in the workplace. Of course, the ADA also clearly stipulates that current users are not protected under the Act.(17) Furthermore, it specifically allows organizations to make use of drug tests to identify current drug users who are not protected under the law.(18)

Yet another issue is whether drug testing, particularly biochemical testing procedures such as urinalysis, blood and saliva analysis, and hair analysis, can be considered to be medical tests, and if so, do they fall under the rubric of ADA?

The implications of these legal, moral, social, and criminal issues for the HRM professional and public personnel management professional is that the legal arena, where drug testing is concerned, is more complex and complicated than is typically the case with the use of other predictors. This is aptly summarized by Atwood who notes that "whether or not to do applicant drug testing is one of the most legally complex and programmatically controversial questions confronting public employers today."

For instance, concerns regarding the constitutional legality of drug testing generally center around one or more of three issues. These issues include: (a) probable cause as related to the Fourth Amendment; (b) the application of due process and the admissibility of drug test results under the Fifth Amendment; and (c) the potential for adverse impact as it pertains to the Civil Rights Act of 1991 although the Act exempts drug testing from having to comply with the validity standards required of other forms of employment testing. Furthermore, drug testing laws may work differently in the public versus private sector. For example, employees of private employers are not protected under the Fourth Amendment. The main point is that the legal issues concerning drug testing are particularly complex and complicated and it will bode the HRM professional and practitioner to familiarize themselves with these issues.

Conclusion

We caution against attempts to make any inferences or draw conclusions based upon apparent similarities between drug tests and other selection methods, especially employment tests. Despite the comparability along several dimensions, there are factors and issues that distinguish drug testing (and tests) from other tests used in selection contexts. The idiosyncratic characteristics include the wide range and variety of tests; the potential negative reactions and resistance to drug testing; the measurement of specific behaviors instead of intrinsic attributes; the dichotomous nature of the operationalized variable and construct; and lastly, the legal, criminal, moral, and social issues pertaining to drug testing. The features have important implications for both human resource management professionals and public personnel management practitioners, and furthermore, need to be recognized in comparative assessments of drug testing and other types of predictors commonly used for employment decision making.

Table 1: Types of Drug Testing Procedures and Tests

* Biochemical Tests

Urinalysis Blood and saliva analysis Hair analysis

* Observational Methods

Physiological Indicators (e.g., nystagmus, pupil dilation) Performance tests Drug recognition experts

* Self-Report Measures

Overt/Direct measures Covert/Indirect measures

* Background Investigations

* Polygraph testing

Notes

1. T.H. Macan, M.J. Avedon, M. Pease, and D.E. Smith. "The effects of applicants' reactions to cognitive ability tests and an assessment center. Personnel Psychology 47 (1994): 715-738. J.G. Rosse, J.L. Miller, and M.D. Stecher. "A field study of job applicants' reactions to personality and cognitive ability testing." Journal of Applied Psychology 79 (1994): 987-992.

2. K.R. Murphy, G. C. Thornton, III and K. Prue, K. "The influence of job characteristics on the acceptability of employee drug testing." Journal of Applied Psychology, 76 (1991): 447-453.

3. D. L. Stone and P.L. Vine. "Some procedural determinants of attitudes toward drug testing." Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA, 1989.

4. K.R. Murphy, G.C. Thornton and D.H. Reynolds. "College students' attitudes towards employee drug testing programs." Personnel Psychology, 43 (1990): 615-631.

5. L.R. Gomez-Mejia and D.B. Balkin. "Dimensions and characteristics of personnel manager perceptions of effective drug-testing programs." Personnel Psychology, 40 (1987): 745-763.

6. See for example B.M. Racicot and K.J. Williams. "Perceived invasiveness and fairness of drug-testing procedures for current employees." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 23 (1993): 1879-1891. or K.R. Murphy & G.C. Thornton, III. "Characteristics of employee drug testing programs." Journal of Business and Psychology, 6 (1992): 295-309.

7. D.J. Hanson. "What employees say about drug testing." Personnel, (1990, July): 32-36.

8. See for example M.A. McDaniel. "Does pre-employment drug use predict on-the-job suitability?" Personnel Psychology, 41 (1988): 717-729. M.D. Newcomb. Drug use in the workplace: Risk factors for disruptive substance use among young adults. Dover, MA: Auburn House. 1988. J.A. Stein, M.D. Newcomb, and P.M. Bentler. "Structure of drug use behaviors and consequences among young adults: Multitrait-multimethod assessment of frequency, quantity, worksite, and problem substance use." Journal of Applied Psychology, 73 (1988): 595-605.

9. C. Viswesvaran, D.S. Ones and F.L. Schmidt. Integrity tests predict drug and alcohol abuse on the job. Paper presented at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, San Diego, CA, 1992.

10. Cook, R.F. and A.D. Bernstein. "Assessing drug abuse in the workplace: A comparison of major methods," Paper presented at the Drug-Free Workplace Conference, Washington, DC, 1991. Photocopied. Kopstein, A. and Gfroerer, J. Drug use patterns and demographics of employed drug users: Data from the 1988 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. NIDA Research Monograph 100. DHHS Pub. No. (ADM) 91-1730. Rockville, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse, (1990): pp. 11-25. Lehman, W.E. and Simpson, D.D. "Employee substance used and on-the-job behaviors." Journal of Applied Psychology, 77 (1992): 309-321.

11. J. Normand, S. Salyards and J. Mahoney. "An evaluation of pre-employment drug testing." Journal of Applied Psychology, 75 (1990): 629-639.

12. M.A. McDaniel. "Does pre-employment drug use predict on-the-job suitability?" Personnel Psychology, 41 (1988): 717-729.

13. L.M. Hough "The 'big five' personality variables - construct confusion: Description versus prediction," Human Performance, 5 (1992): 139-155.

14. Cook, R. F., and A. D. Bernstein. "Assessing drug abuse in the workplace: A comparison of major methods," Paper presented at the Drug-Free Workplace Conference, Washington, DC, 1991. Photocopied.

15. Cropanzano, R., and M. Konovsky, M. Drug use and its implications for employee drug testing. In G. R. Ferris (Ed.), Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management (Vol. 11, pp. 207-257). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1993.

16. Boller, H. R., Massengill. "Public employers' obligation to reasonably accommodate the disabled under the Rehabilitation and Americans with Disabilities Acts," Public Personnel Management, 21 (1992): 273-300.

17. ADA.

18. ADA.

19. Atwood, J. F. "Applicant drug testing: An intriguing odyssey," Public Personnel Management 21 (1992): 119-132.

References

Atwood, J. F. "Applicant drug testing: An intriguing odyssey," Public Personnel Management 21 (1992): 119-132.

Binning, J. F., and G. V. Barrett. "Validity of personnel decisions: A conceptual analysis of the inferential and evidential bases," Journal of Applied Psychology 74 (1989): 478-494.

Boller, H. R., and D. Massengill. "Public employers' obligation to reasonably accommodate the disabled under the Rehabilitation and Americans with Disabilities Acts," Public Personnel Management 21 (1992), 273-300.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Survey of employer anti-drug programs," U.S. Department of Labor, Report 760. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989.

Cook, R. F. "Drug use among working adults: Prevalence rates and estimation methods," In S. W. Gust & J. M. Walsh (Eds.), Drugs in the workplace: Research and evaluation data (National Institute on Drug Abuse Research Monograph No. 91, pp. 17-32). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989.

Cook, R. F., and A. D. Bernstein. "Assessing drug abuse in the workplace: A comparison of major methods," Paper presented at the Drug-Free Workplace Conference, Washington, DC, 1991. Photocopied.

Crant, J. M., and T. S. Bateman. "An experimental test of the impact of drug-testing programs on potential job applicants' attitudes and intentions," Journal of Applied Psychology 75 (1990), 127-131.

Cropanzano, R., and M. Konovsky, M. Drug use and its implications for employee drug testing. In G. R. Ferris (Ed.), Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management (Vol. 11, pp. 207-257). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1993.

Gomez-Mejia, L. R., and D. B. Balkin. "Dimensions and characteristics of personnel manager perceptions of effective drug-testing programs," Personnel Psychology, 40 (1987): 745-763.

Guthrie, J. P., & J.D. Olian. "Drug and alcohol testing programs: The influence of organizational context and objectives," Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA. 1989. Photocopied.

Hanson, D. J. "What employees say about drug testing," Personnel, July (1990): 32-36.

Hough, L. M. "The "big five" personality variables - construct confusion: Description versus prediction," Human Performance, 5 (1992): 139-155.

Kopstein, A., & J. Gfroerer. "Drug use patterns and demographics of employed drug users: Data from the 1988 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse." NIDA Research Monograph 100. DHHS Pub. No. (ADM) 91-1730. Rockville, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse, (1990): pp. 11-25.

Lehman, W. E., & D. D. Simpson. "Employee substance use and on-the-job behaviors," Journal of Applied Psychology, 77 (1992): 309-321.

Macan, T. H., Avedon, M. J., Pease, M., and Smith, D. E. "The effects of applicants' reactions to cognitive ability tests and an assessment center." Personnel Psychology, 47 (1994): 715-738.

McDaniel, M. A. "Does pre-employment drug use predict on-the-job suitability?" Personnel Psychology, 41 (1988): 717-729.

Murphy, K. R. "Detecting infrequent deception," Journal of Applied Psychology, 72 (1987): 611-614.

Murphy, K. R. Honesty in the workplace. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. (1993)

Murphy, K. R., and G. C. Thornton, III. "Characteristics of employee drug testing programs. Journal of Business and Psychology, 6 (1992): 295-309.

Murphy, K. R., G.C. Thornton, III, and K. Prue. "The influence of job characteristics on the acceptability of employee drug testing." Journal of Applied Psychology, 76 (1991): 447-453.

Murphy, K. R., G.C. Thornton, III, and D. H. Reynolds. "College students' attitudes towards employee drug testing programs." Personnel Psychology, 43 (1990): 615-631.

Newcomb, M. D. Drug use in the workplace: Risk factors for disruptive substance use among young adults. Dover, MA: Auburn House. 1988.

NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) 1990 National household survey on drug abuse, NIDA Capsule. Rockville, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse. 1990.

Normand, J., S. Salyards, and J. Mahoney. "An evaluation of pre-employment drug testing." Journal of Applied Psychology, 75 (1990): 629-639.

Racicot, B. M. and K. J. Williams. "Perceived invasiveness and fairness of drug-testing procedures for current employees." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 23 (1993): 1879-1891.

Rosse, J. G., Miller, J. L., and Stecher, M. D. "A field study of job applicants' reactions to personality and cognitive ability testing." Journal of Applied Psychology, 79 (1994): 987-992.

Stein, J. A., M.D. Newcomb and P.M. Bentler. "Structure of drug use behaviors and consequences among young adults: Multitrait-multimethod assessment of frequency, quantity, worksite, and problem substance use," Journal of Applied Psychology, 73 (1988): 595-605.

Stone, D.L., and D.A. Kotch. "Individual's attitudes toward organizational drug testing policies and practices." Journal of Applied Psychology, 74 (1989): 518-521.

Stone, D. L., and P.L. Vine. "Some procedural determinants of attitudes toward drug testing. Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA. 1989.

Viswesvaran, C., D.S. Ones and F.L. Schmidt. "Integrity tests predict drug and alcohol abuse on the job." Paper presented at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, San Diego, CA. 1992.

Dr. Winfred Arthur, Jr. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Texas A&M University; he is also a vice president of Barrett and Associates, Inc., a human resource management consulting firm. His research interests include personnel selection, testing, validation, training, skill acquisition and retention.

Dr. Dennis Doverspike, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Akron; he is also Executive Vice President of Barrett and Associates, Inc., a human resources management consulting firm. His research interests include personnel selection and job evaluation.

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