Background Screening | 5 Reasons You Should Eliminate Chairs From Meetings Pt. 1

Background Screening | 5 Reasons You Should Eliminate Chairs From Meetings Pt. 1

Background Screening | 5 Reasons You Should Eliminate Chairs From Meetings Pt. 1

 

Background Screening | Take a quick walk around a corporate office and you’ll likely see some people standing at their desks working where a chair used to be. But it doesn’t stop there. You may also see groups of people standing around having a meeting. No need for a conference room with a large table.

What’s with all the standing? Are there truly benefits to it? Do standing meetings, also known as standups, check-ins or huddles, help teams accomplish more, or are they a corporate fad to accompany the latest set of fashionable buzzwords?

The standing meeting is a gift that comes from the world of Agile software development. Standups are primarily a way for project team members to give daily updates on what they did yesterday, what they’ll do today and any obstacles they’re running into. The frequency and focus can be altered to fit the needs of your team or project.

Standing meetings have distinct advantages over traditional meetings where team members sit and discuss their topics. Ditch the chairs and embrace a new way of conducting meetings to reap benefits ranging from higher productivity to better health. 

1. It’s a more efficient way to meet

Because standups are quick, happen regularly and take place in the location where the people are doing the work, rather than in a conference room, they create an environment that’s well-suited for efficiency. When was the last time you heard a colleague lament about the need for more and longer meetings? The opposite is generally true. You and your team members will appreciate the time you’ll save by running more efficient and effective meetings.

In fact, there are strategies to create a good standup meeting. Several things up the efficiency factor of standups and set them apart from traditional meetings. Participants in standing meetings should be there ready to share goals, problems and solutions with one another in the moment.

Issues can be identified and therefore addressed in a more timely manner. When issue do come up, the affected people know about it sooner and can begin to work toward a solution more quickly.

Tools such as visual management boards, also known an improvement boards, are an efficient way to acknowledge problems that need to be resolved. Using aids in standing meetings are one way to provide helpful visual cues to participants about what’s being discussed to keep the group on-task and moving swiftly through the topics.

2. Standing meetings get people talking

Standing meetings open lines of communication between team members. This type of meeting creates an opportunity to start meaningful conversations that will enhance your business and project work. If team members take information they’ve heard during a standing meeting and begin to collaborate on projects or seek support from one another, you know the meetings are useful. And the goal is to always hold valuable and effective meetings.

What you don’t want to happen is for people to sit in meetings and then walk away having had no meaningful dialogue, solved no problems, developed no plans or created no opportunities for follow-up. This, unfortunately, is the result of many meetings in the workplace that take at least an hour or more to conduct.

After the initial background screening and once hired -standing meetings are concise by design, they help people quickly make their point or get to the core of an issue. In longer, more formal meetings, people may meander when talking or cloud their main content with unnecessary details. This can cause someone who may have been a potential partner, or someone who could use the information to not grasp the main point and therefore not make the connection with the person presenting the information.

3. Standing is a healthy choice

Moving around and standing at work have both been shown to have health benefits. By standing at work, even briefly, you cause your muscles to contract and prompt your body to burn calories. This is a healthy option for people who normally work in a seated position for the majority of the day.

In fact, too much sitting can contribute to adverse health effects such as insulin resistance and the development of belly fat. Busy professionals who may have a hard time fitting an exercise routine in their busy schedules can benefit from any help in leading a healthy lifestyle. -Recruit Loop

 

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Background Screening | 7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Managing Remote Teams Pt. 2

Background Screening | 7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Managing Remote Teams Pt. 2

Background Screening | 7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Managing Remote Teams Pt. 2

Background Screening |  “Remote teams are not as flexible as you may assume,” – she explains. “You can’t accept any order knowing you have people ready to work for you from their homes. Remember: you’ve hired them to do a specific job and they still expect to have some free time, so don’t count on their flexibility too much. If you want to keep a remote team efficient, you have to be an efficient delegator.”

5. Hiring great employees who have no idea how to handle tasks from home

You can have the best workers in the world and you know they are suitable for the tasks you have in mind, but that doesn’t mean they will master the job from home. Someone may be a very hard worker in a more traditional office environment, but they may get distracted performing the same tasks from home.

Do they have the conditions to work from home? Can they set up a home office, or do they live in a tiny apartment with no space for a desk? Remote working requires proper conditions, but it’s also a skill that not everyone has.

If you want to make sure you have the right workers for the job, hire people who have worked remotely before or have experience running their own projects. If you already have an office team and you want to shift towards remote work, make sure everyone is able to handle the challenge before making a drastic change in their lives.

6. Failure to use the right communication tools

What’s the most important thing to maintain when you manage and engage remote teams? Let me hear you say it: communication!

Since you can’t count on direct (face to face) communication, the connection within the team may be disturbed. That’s why you have to make up for the gap, and you need to use the right tools for that purpose.

Email is the first thing that comes to mind. Yes, it’s an effective tool for communication with individuals and teams. However, written communication can get a bit dry and boring. You don’t want your workers to feel the daily correspondence as a burden. Thus, you need to add the element of fun into it.

What happens when you want to explain new projects or tasks to your team members? In that case, written text can be misinterpreted or misunderstood, and it doesn’t convey the message in the clearest manner possible. In such situations, consider using digital whiteboards, private chat rooms, or internal social networks incorporated into the organization’s website. Asana, Wrike, and similar project management tools can make the communication within the team very effective.

7. Focusing on talent and forgetting about team-fit

Of course you want to hire talent within the remote team. That’s your main focus, since you want all tasks to be completed by exceptionally talented and capable people. Strong individuals are great achievers, but their attitude can often become a problem when you put them inside an existing team culture. In an office, it’s easier for them to feel the vibe and fit in. In a remote team, however, they may find it difficult to sense the culture and they won’t make an effort to become part of it.

When you hire new members to join a remote team, you have to make sure they are on the same page as everyone else. Ask the candidates about their personal interests, the way they perceive the tasks, and the opinions they have about the company’s challenges. -Recruit Loop 

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Employment Background Check | 7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Managing Remote Teams Pt. 1

Employment Background Check | 7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Managing Remote Teams Pt. 1

Employment Background Check | 7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Managing Remote Teams Pt. 1

 

Employment Background Check |  Some of the most prominent and successful companies in the world, such as Zapier, Buffer, and Groove, have built a culture out of remote working. Their managers are effective in maintaining the team spirit and the community vibe, although every individual covers the work from home.

However, other companies are having second thoughts about introducing remote teams in their culture. In 2013,Best Buy followed the practice of Reddit and Yahoo by announcing the end of their flexible work program.

Why did these companies, which are famous for relying on technology, decide to change their work-at-home policies? Were they worried about the speed and quality of the work being sacrificed when the workers stayed at home?

As always, there are two sides of the coin.

These are the benefits you’ll most likely experience by promoting a culture of remote teams:

  • Lower expenses;
  • Access to a greater talent pool;
  • Higher productivity; and
  • Flexibility

Some managers of remote teams, however, mention these disadvantages:

  • Security issues (home-based systems are not as resistant to hacking as office security systems);
  • Connectivity problems; and
  • Not having full control over the team’s work.

If remote team managers establish effective communication and avoid the most common pitfalls, the pros of this working method will definitely prevail.

Here are 7 pitfalls to avoid in managing remote teams:

1. Paying too much attention to bad examples

Okay, remote team work didn’t work for Reddit, Best Buy, and Yahoo. So what? Does that mean you should completely give up on this idea? Absolutely not! Why not follow the example of companies that did make it work?

The only way to find out what works for your specific company is to analyze its needs and culture. Are the team members capable of working from home? Can you keep remote workers in the loop through virtual means of communication? If you think this could work out, you should certainly give it a try.

Think about it: your workers will be saving a lot of money they would spend on commuting and lunches if they work from home. That sole fact will keep them motivated to do the best job they can. Have a long talk, explain the way the team would function, and feel their vibe. If they are willing to take the business home, you’ll be one step closer to making a good decision.

2. Treating remote workers as individuals

Jim Mullaney, the CEO and founder of Edoc Service, has a nice experience to share about managing remote teams. One of his important recommendations is for the managers to maintain the team spirit as healthily as possible.

“If you’re going to have remote workers, you have to remote them as a team,” – he explains. “Salespeople are often competing with one another, and they’re not interested in other members winning. It’s all about themselves. In a team environment, a win for the team means that everyone has to win, and everyone wants to help one another win.”

That true team spirit has to be maintained even when people work from home. Keep reminding them that they have to support each other for the sake of achieving great results at a group level.

3. Not soliciting feedback

Remote employees are still employees. You still need to know what they think about the job they are doing, and they want to be heard and understood. They have unique ideas that may improve the way the entire team works, so building rapport is one of the main factors that promotes progress.

Try not to keep the communication limited to work, though. You still need to maintain the sense of community, so try to engage them in conversations they would usually have in the office. Start a common message thread to ask how everyone is doing and support the conversation with spontaneous prompts. If you lack ideas, mention the latest episode of Game of Thrones for instanceIt’s always a nice conversation starter.

When you manage to maintain the connection beyond work tasks, you’ll be able to congratulate yourself about being a great remote team leader.

4. Allocating the wrong tasks to the wrong people

Remote arrangements can certainly fail if you fail to estimate the capacity of a worker and delegate the wrong tasks to them. Ashley Stewart, the coordinator manager at EduGeeks Club, runs a remote team of writers who complete different tasks for clients. She has to delegate each order to the right member of the team. -Recruit Loop

 

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Employment Background Check | Save Time When Screening Resumes

Employment Background Check | Save Time When Screening Resumes

Employment Background Check | Save Time When Screening Resumes

 

Employment Background Check |  The resume provides a first snapshot of your potential new employee. It won’t tell you if someone’s right for the job. But it’s a good way to screen the applicants that clearly aren’t. As a hiring manager, use this to your advantage to save time in the initial employment background screening. Look out for warning signs rather than applicants’ strengths, to get through that pile of resumes faster.

Here are 5 warning signs to help with an initial screening:

1. Excessive length. A great resume can condense everything into one page. While the single-page resume is more common in the US, in Australia most hiring managers are used to 2 pages. But beware anything longer than 3 pages. If a candidate can’t write concisely on one of their most important documents, what hope do they have in business communications?

2. Poor presentation. There’s nothing wrong with using a template to present a resume. But depending on the role, watch out for signs of unoriginality and even laziness. If creativity or attention-to-detail are important requirements, a boring or poorly presented resume is a good warning sign. The web is full of inspiration for truly creative resumes. While not everyone’s a designer, it’s easier than ever to achieve a professional polish.

3. Lack of customisation. We’ve all seen the application that looks like it was written for another role. Did they even read the ad? This is a surefire sign that your applicant is a little careless with details. You’ll know if they took time to tailor their resume to fit your requirements. If it looks like an applicant has sent a generic resume to numerous jobs without considering the specifics of your role, they probably have.

4. Cheesy fonts and sizes. Being creative with a resume is different from being sloppy. A resume that tries to impress with the use of non-standard or ‘artsy’ fonts rarely achieves that objective. It’s more likely a sign of inexperience or unprofessionalism. Forget comic sans. In most business environments you’re looking for sleek, professional formatting that adheres to the standard fonts.

5. The grade10 email address. Plenty of us had one. But then we wised up and upgraded to something mildly more serious. Do you really want your employees logging into webmail at hotstuff_69@hotmail.com? This applicant is either not ready to go of their old ways, or is too lazy to create a more a professional email address. Either way, best not to waste time with someone who is not willing to put in the extra hours to come up with a professional looking resume. -Recruit Loop

 

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Fingerprinting | Benefits of Outsourcing Occupational Health Programs

Fingerprinting | Benefits of Outsourcing Occupational Health Programs

Fingerprinting | Benefits of Outsourcing Occupational Health Programs

 

Fingerprinting |   While there are any number of reasons that an employer may desire to conduct medical screening on their employees, employers generally conduct medical screening on their employees for two basic reasons:

1. An employer may be required by regulation to perform some form of medical screening.These regulations are often based on either federal or state laws. Examples of employers subject to such regulations are those in the Transportation, Healthcare, and Mining industries. There are, of course, other regulations and industries that may have the need to conduct medical screening beyond those highlighted here.

2. Create a safer and more effective workforce. The major benefits of these programs are:

  • Reduce absenteeism due to injury
  • Reduce work related injuries
  • Help assess an employee’s ability to safely perform your particular job requirements
  • Reduce employee turnover
  • Establish a baseline health condition for future comparison

While many employers are aware of the need to perform medical screens, some employers may be unaware of the hard costs associated with these types of testing.

Examinations, immunizations, respirator clearance testing, audiograms, and other such related exams all cost money.

One item, however, that employers often overlook is the administration cost of managing these programs.

The costs that employers often miss are:

  • Cost of clinic selection
    • Picking the best clinic at the best price
  • Cost of clinic management
    • Making appointments
    • Tracking down exam statuses
  • Cost of a poor applicant experience (use of an inconvenient clinic)
    • Candidate attraction
    • Employee retention

The cost of clinic selection is an easy concept to appreciate, but it is hard to quantify.

Companies often have static clinics networks that do not change. Over time these clinics often increase their fees.

Since companies do not routinely go out to bid for these occupational health services, these fee increases will cause a substantial increase in their program cost.

Not managing clinic selection could cost companies a substantial amount of money since they are not leveraging their size to help mitigate program cost inflation.

Cost of clinic management for companies is substantial.

In the post offer arena, companies have their Talent Acquisition team manage making clinic appointments for candidates as well as track down occupational health service paperwork.

In the post-employment arena, the responsibility may be managed by another team, but the hard cost remains the same.

The management cost can be quantified by tracking the number of hours the personnel managing the program spends dealing with the clinic.

According to a recent report by Bersin by Deloitte, companies reported that their average talent acquisition cost increased to nearly $4,000 per hire.

A positive candidate experience should definitely be valued while spending this much per person.

If a candidate or employee has a better impression of a company, their employee retention rate may increase as well.

Outsourcing the management of clinic services also coincides with a positive candidate experience, along with other significant cost savings.

When opting to use a third party vendor, the following benefits are appreciated:

    • Clinic Selection – vendors who are in the business of managing clinics may be able to select clinics with the best price point. Vendors also can regularly evaluate clinics for performance and compliance. Even though it is hard to quantify this value, it is easy to appreciate the benefit of using the best clinic at the best rate possible, while also saving you time in the process.

 

    • Clinic Management – setting appointments and tracking down occupational health service statuses and paperwork cost companies significant amounts of money. The real cost is figured by tracking the number of hours spent managing this program in-house. For example, a large telecommunications company states that they saved over $900,000 in one year by outsourcing their clinic management to a third party. This cost savings was garnered over 10,000 candidates making the savings per candidate around $90. This figure per candidate is most likely pretty standard. Outsourcing the clinic management can be an effective way to mitigate this line item expense.

 

    • Candidate Experience – using a vendor who can work with your candidates to establish a convenient testing site location will enhance their candidate fingerprinting experience. This positive experience is fostered by individual coordination of the medical screening event. When services are individually coordinated, the candidate feels that they are being treated as an important individual. This may make a positive impression on the new employee which may enhance employee retention rates. The impact of reducing employee turnover, even as little as 1%, is huge when it comes to return on investment. -HireRight

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Fingerprinting | Guide To Quality Pt. 2

Fingerprinting | Guide To Quality Pt. 2

Fingerprinting | A Guide To Quality (Not Just Quantity) Hires Pt. 2

 

Fingerprinting | A strong brand or positive reviews in the industry or on social media can go a long way in attracting more candidates. [ Tweet this!]

6. Consider using temporary staffing agencies

Staffing a temp is sometimes a good way to “try someone out” before you commit to hiring them full-time.

7. Conduct thorough background screens

This is can be a crucial step to help you evaluate who you are hiring.

The fact is that candidates may try to embellish their resume and can potentially fake their way through a great interview.

Background screens can help weed out the impostors and may deter candidates who know about your screening process from lying. [ Tweet this!]

How to Keep Quality Employees:

1. Offer better benefits besides pay

Candidates consider many factors when looking for a job, besides the pay.

Other benefits, such as flexible work schedules, positive work environments, or longer parental leave, may be more important to a candidate than salary alone.

2. Conduct exit interviews

Exit interviews can give great insight to why people are leaving your organization. [ Tweet this!]

Another way to focus on employee retention is to conduct stay interviews. These types of interviews allow managers to assess what is and isn’t working in the work environment.

 3. Start quality hires at the top

Hire supervisors that are supportive and can communicate clear expectations that will facilitate a positive work environment and promote job security. [ Tweet this!]

4. Create an open work environment

Employees should be able to offer feedback and feel that they have a voice that is heard within an organization.

5. Offer opportunities and growth

People will tend to leave a job when they feel like there is no more room for growth. -HireRight

 

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Fingerprinting | A Guide To Quality (Not Just Quantity) Hires Pt. 1

Fingerprinting | A Guide To Quality (Not Just Quantity) Hires Pt. 1

Fingerprinting | A Guide To Quality (Not Just Quantity) Hires Pt. 1

 

Fingerprinting | As unemployment rates decrease to their lowest number in years, employers face a new challenge managing their workforce.

According to the HireRight’s 2016 Benchmark Report, respondents report that finding qualified job candidates and keeping good employees are the top investment categories they plan to focus on.

Now that the job market is more candidate-centric, employees are more likely to switch jobs in pursuit of a better work environment, benefits package, salary, or opportunity.

Employers are recognizing the increase in employee turnover and are looking for ways to not only find qualified workers, but to retain them too. [ Tweet this!]

Hiring, onboarding, and training a new employee can be a costly prospect for an employer, making it worthwhile to try and keep an employee who is familiar with the job and the organization.

How to Attract Qualified Candidates:

1. Start with clear and understandable job descriptions

Outlining specific experience points, qualities, and expected work ethic will allow you to attract the type of employee you want for the job.

Also, consider livening up the job description and include other bonuses of working for your organization, such as the great team they’ll work with or the casual dress code.

2. Use your current employee network

Many good employees are often found and recruited by reference of a current employee.

Most people will only recommend someone they believe will be a good worker, since a bad hire might tarnish their personal or professional reputation. [ Tweet this!]

3. Reevaluate the hiring process

Is it too long or complicated?

Many candidates don’t want to waste their time and will often take another opportunity if it presents itself before you can even get them past the initial stages of vetting.

You might try group interviewing to speed up the process, and at minimum, make sure your candidate is aware of what to expect with respect to your entire evaluation process. [ Tweet this!]

 4. Make the interviewing process a two-way street

Encouraging candidates to ask questions during the interview may give the insight into what is really important to that person.

It may also give them a glimpse into what it’s really like to work for your organization.

5. Improve your company brand

People want to work for a company that is well known or has a good reputation. -HireRight

 

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Background Screening | Considering “Do-It-Yourself” Online Background Checks? Pt. 2

Background Screening | Considering “Do-It-Yourself” Online Background Checks? Pt. 2

Background Screening | Considering “Do-It-Yourself” Online Background Checks? Pt. 2

 

Background Screening | Rather than sacrificing company resources to ensure accuracy, it may be best to leave it to a consumer reporting agency who has a duty of accuracy under the FCRA.

Additionally, a comprehensive background check requires a thorough investigation of multiple sources of information.

Not only are screenings expected to go through many databases, they are expected to search best sources of information including the most relevant repositories for the most pertinent information.

Without the expertise and time, the search for accurate results against a comprehensive set of sources can outweigh the benefits of a DIY background check.

What will I get for my money?

As a perk of all things digital, online background checks are marketed to be cheaper than those from a third-party screening company.

However, the depth and accuracy of such services may not meet the needs of companies requiring a thorough search conducted by an experienced CRA that can be contacted with questions and maintains compliance with the FCRA.

In order to gain access to some official documents, such as criminal records in some states, requestors may be charged upwards of $50 by the official repository of that State’s criminal records.

If a DIY background check company charges anything less, there is valid reason to believe that the report will not yield results on par with those sourced directly with the State by a CRA.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, the decision to outsource online background screenings is completely at the discretion of your company.

DIY online background checks may sound appealing due to their quick, cost-effective nature but they pose risks that you, as an employer, will have to contend with.

The FCRA has dictated stringent regulations that demand compliance for Consumer Reporting Agencies. For example, companies should notice whether a service will outright call itself a consumer reporting agency.

If the company is not willing to market itself as a Consumer Reporting Agency, they probably are not in compliance with FCRA.

Some DIY background check sites even state quite clearly that they are not FCRA compliant and that the information they provide should not be used to make hiring decisions.

Third-party firms, specifically Consumer Reporting Agencies, on the other hand, are FCRA-compliant, and offer expertise and resources that can help ensure legitimacy and accuracy in their findings. -HireRight

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Background Screening | Considering “Do-It-Yourself” Online Background Checks? Pt. 1

Background Screening | Considering “Do-It-Yourself” Online Background Checks? Pt. 1

Background Screening | Considering “Do-It-Yourself” Online Background Checks? Pt. 1

 

Background Screening |  As businesses become comfortable using the Internet to handle a variety of support functions, a surprising number and diverse sorts of “Do-It-Yourself” services have become available, including “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) online background checks.

While seemingly simple and affordable, such services present potential risks that could pose a threat to a businesses’ brand.

Here’s a brief list of considerations that could serve as a litmus test as to whether a DIY background check service or a more-conventional Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) is the best choice for you.

 

Will the search be wide and deep?

As with any type of research upon which your business may depend, background checks require thorough scrutiny of data sources.

Such research expends large amounts of both time and personnel resources. Take, for example, legal records used for criminal background checks.

In the United States, available data differs between federal, state, and municipal levels; for example, there are thousands of jurisdictions where pubic records can be obtained, and the manner for obtaining these records can vary from court to court.

So, depending on how many locations the candidate attended school, lived and worked, researchers may be faced with combing through records maintained in numerous locations.

CRAs typically enlist the aid of court runners since many jurisdictions require in-person representation to access their records.

How will the DIY service you’re considering deal with this complex and often inconsistent process?

Also, DIY services may merely aggregate information on a candidate based on readily-available online data, to include publicly available information contained in news stories and social media accounts.

Ask if that is the case because solely using and relying upon such information presents potential legal risks to an employer; the information may be on the wrong person, incorrect or out of date.

And making a hiring decision based on a candidate’s public online persona without ensuring the data is accurate and complete may be deemed prejudicial.

 

Will the results be accurate?

Regardless of how meticulous it is, each background check may yield confusing and erroneous findings.

And, as noted above, the information may not refer to the right candidate.

Even when handling such tasks using internal resources, companies can spend massive amounts of time trying to reconcile such data.

On the other hand, third-party providers bear the responsibility to compile information in an accurate manner for their clients. -HireRight

 

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Fingerprinting | U.S. Drug Test Positivity Rates for Workers at a 10-Year High

Fingerprinting | U.S. Drug Test Positivity Rates for Workers at a 10-Year High

Fingerprinting | U.S. Drug Test Positivity Rates for Workers at a 10-Year High

Fingerprinting |  According to Quest Diagnostics’ recent Drug Testing IndexTM report, the percentage of employees in the U.S. workforce testing positive for drugs has increased over the last three years to a 10-year high of 4.0% in urine specimens.

Key Findings include:

  • The positivity rate for urine increased to four percent, a relative change of 2.6 percent over the positivity rate in 2014 (4.0% vs. 3.9%). This rate reflects a relative increase of 14% over the 10-year low of 3.5% in 2010 and 2011.
  • Of particular concern is that post-accident urine drug testing positivity increased 6.2% in 2015 compared to 2014 (6.9% vs. 6.5%) and increased 30% since 2011 (5.3%). Particularly noteworthy is that post-accident positivity for the safety-sensitive workforce rose 22% during a five-year time period (2.8% in 2015 vs. 2.3% in 2011).
  • Oral-fluid positivity rates increased 47% over the last three years to 9.1% in 2015 from 6.7% in 2013. In 2015, there was a 25% relative increase in marijuana detection compared to 2014 (7.5% vs. 6.0%).
  • Not surprising is that the highest positivity rate for drug detection testing methods was hair testing at 10.3% in 2015, a seven percent increase over 2014 (9.6%). Hair testing can show repetitive drug use for as far back as 90 days, while urine detects recent drug use, usually in one to three days. Oral fluid detects recent drug use in the previous 24-48 hours.
  • Almost half (45%) of workers with a positive drug test for any substance in 2015 showed evidence of marijuana.
  • Amphetamine positivity increased 44 percent and marijuana positivity increased 26% since 2011. Oxycodone positivity rates have declined annually since 2011, which confirms that opioid prescriptions have declined since 2012.
  • Heroin positivity increased 146% between 2011 and 2015 for the general U.S. workforce.
  • For federally-mandated safety-sensitive employees, heroin positivity increased a relative 4.5% since 2014 and a relative 84% since 2011. In addition, positive rates for amphetamines increased 7% year-over-year (0.58% in 2015 vs. 0.54% in 2014).

The results above are derived from analysis of more than 9.5 million urine, 900,000 oral fluid and 200,000 hair laboratory-based tests performed by Quest Diagnostics in 2015.

The Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index (DTI) examines test results from three categories of workers:  federally mandated, safety-sensitive workers; the general workforce; and the combined U.S. workforce.

The strength of the Drug Testing Index analysis includes its large, national sample size, longitudinal monitoring, and a testing population that is generally a good representative sampling of the total composition of the U.S. workforce.

Conclusions

These findings unfortunately provide a sound reason to increase your drug-testing efforts and to continue to enforce a drug-free workplace policy.

Build a testing program that meets your needs and clearly identify which roles require testing in your pre-employment documentation and drug testing policy.

Evaluate urine, oral fluid, and hair testing methods to determine which best meets your needs.

To decide among methods, consider cost, whether testing can be done on-site, and the length of the detection window.

For pre-employment screening, hair testing offers up to 90 days of visibility.

The one-week window of urine or oral fluid testing is appropriate for same-day ongoing screening. -HireRight

 

 

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