Drug and alcohol testing policies are continually evolving and changing to reflect new state laws, federal regulations, or workplace attitudes. A regular review of your company’s current policy and procedures will help ensure that your company is on track to meet its goals and be legally compliant.

If your policy is no longer delivering value or helping you find employees that will execute your desired goals, it may be time to reevaluate.

Not sure if your policy could use updating?

Here are some indications that it could be time to update your policy:

Medical marijuana hasn’t been discussed

Although an employer is generally allowed to create their own drug testing policy including the right to a drug-free workplace, with changing laws surrounding both medical and recreational marijuana there may be some nuances you should be familiar with. Check out our article talking about testing for marijuana in the workplace today here and consult with your legal team about what guidelines you should follow.

No process is in place to monitor industry standards or changes

After spending so much time and consideration building your drug testing policy, you won’t need to review or update it for several years, right? Wrong! Most drug testing companies advise that you should review your policy at least once a year. Laws are ever-changing and this includes background screening and drug testing laws. Make sure that your policy is up-to-date with your specific state and industry’s standards.

You haven’t recently assessed your testing type or panel

We find that employers sometimes need to change their testing type or panel to best reflect changes within their company or improve their testing process. It’s a learning game and there isn’t necessarily a testing type or panel that is “best”; it depends on what options are most beneficial for your company.

Some examples of cause for change include:

-With the opioid epidemic, many employers have now updated their testing panel to include semi-synthetic opioids (hydrocodone, oxycodone, etc.) or other prescription medications.

-Some employers decide to change testing types to allow on-site testing which can help cut down on time spent for an employee to take a test.

-Other employers have had issues arise with certain drugs they hadn’t previously included in their testing panel which they then added. Or they’ve had a workplace accident occur due to drug use that has prompted them to add things to their testing program such as: reasonable suspicion training for their supervisors and post-accident testing.

At the beginning of this new year we would advise you to take some time reviewing your company’s current drug testing policy. If you have any questions about how adding or changing your current services could potentially benefit your company, please give us a call at the number above or reach out to our support team at mail@blueline-services.com.

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We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. We’re super excited for this new year and everything that we have in store for you. There are a couple new updates that have been made in our platform that we wanted to make you aware of. Hopefully these updates will help streamline your screening process.

1. Text Enabled QuickApp

The first update is that text distributed QuickApps are now available to all users. To take advantage of this new feature, users can simply select the text distributed option when creating any QuickApp order. When the order is completed, both a text and email link will be sent to the consumer, notifying them to complete their application. The text form option mimics the desktop option, but will be available to the user on their mobile device for ease of use. The consumer has the ability to opt out of text alerts at any time.

2. Prompt Tags For Disclosures

The second enhancement is a great compliance feature that will help you with your disclosure process. The new prompt tags feature will prompt a user to complete more information before sending a disclosure letter (i.e. adverse action reason(s), individualized assessments, etc.). The new prompt tags give extraordinary flexibility to the user who wants more control over the messages they send to the consumer. It can also be used in a disclosure letter and/or with a jurisdictional tag. This will help users stay in compliance with the ever-changing screening laws.

If you have any questions about these new updates, please email our customer support team at backgrounds@blueline-services.com.

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Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to work with you this year. We appreciate your support and business and wish you the best holiday season!

We’re excited about all of the new things that we have in store for you this year. There are a lot of exciting things we have planned that will help improve your overall screening experience and hopefully your business too. We thank you for your understanding and patience as we’ve been working on trying to provide you with the best service possible.

We hope you enjoy this lovely holiday season with your family, friends, and coworkers and have a wonderful new year!

Love,

The Blueline Services Team

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