Drug and alcohol rehab programs can represent a real value and benefit to employers.  In todays competitive and cost cutting enviroment it might be easy to say that employee assistance programs covering drug and alcohol addiction might be considered for the axe.  I think it would be extremely short sighted to follow through with that consideration.  The costs of addiction are enormous. 

First of all is the lost productivity.  While employees are using and seeking their drug of choice they are not doing their work.  Again being hung over from drugs and alcohol decrease effectiveness at their job. Extra sick days are taken.   Then there is the increased liability to the company that may occur if an employee makes a mistake while under the influence.  Liability and liability insurance concerns run into millions of dollars for large companies.

Employees that are addicted are more likely to steal money and valuables from work.  Again this will be a large cost to the company.  Addiction affects the general health of the individual.  Again this will impact the bottom line of an organization in increased health insurance premiums.

Making help available through a good alcohol and drug rehab program is very cost effective when balanced against all the costs of addiction.  Let's hope more employers look at the big picture and make the right choice.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.