1st Source
INTRODUCTION:
This article starts out with an introduction describing different ways to approach an intervention for a drug addict. This is not relevent to my topic, so I am going to start out with the first important paragraph that starts out in the introduction of the article, rather than summarize inimportant text.
The first important paragraph explains that people who struggle with depression and schizophrenia are able to get a job faster than an alcoholic. The next paragraph goes on to say that the point of the study was to find out how drug addicts are affected when looking for a job, and how management views the former addicts as job canadites. The writer of this article is determined to change peoples ideas on the relevence of interventions and how it can be more effective. It is going to take a lead into discussing the different types of social representations of drug addicts and how they are viewed from an outside standpoint.
The entire article is based on information gathered from a survey.
Selecting Companies and Making Up the Sample
Paragraph 1 and 2: They selected 70 company managers in Quebec City and Montreal to participate in the survey. They were voluntary participators and did an hour and a half interview.
Paragraph 3: Describes the main points of the interview . The workplace, and its policies. The managers’ views on the substance abuse process in general, Current practices regarding the hiring and selection of new employees. The partnerships with social services and drug addiction issues.
Paragraph 4: This paragraph described the validity of the interviews and how the researchers recorded the information using a software that allowed them to use cross analysis of different variables.
Paragraph 5 & 6: Managers have a difficult time holding suspicion during an interview as to whether or not the person is a recovering drug addict, until they decide to give a drug screening test. Based on the structures of hiring, there are several different approaches and attitudes to the situation.
Central Elements and the Managers Discourse:
2 Main ideas: the vulnerabity of drug addicts, and how companys cope with it.
Paragraph 1: Drug addictions form from individuals who have had issues in their life and personal history that causes them to become dependent on drugs to escape reality. It is a way to keep isolated from society. Managers understand the concept on addiction and therefore know what types of problems that drug addicts cope with. This allows managment to create a specific image of an addict being a weak person and a disfunctional worker.
Paragraph 2&3: The person who is addicted must admit to their problems before confronting them because they will not admit that there is an issue, and this results in having trust issues within the company. If an employee cannot admit the truth to themselves then how are they going to keep promises and commitments within an organization? The answer is they cannot. In order to gain the trust back it takes a long period of time to function normally (without lieing, and disceiving others), in order to be trusted as a worker. Employers will wait months after the person becomes better to increase the likelyhood of not relapsing, and becoming stable.
Companies Essential Mission of Productivity:
Paragraph 1, 2, & 3: The biggest issue that managment will have with drug addicts or alcoholics is the reliability factor. They lack movement, attention, and judgment when they are under the influence. It is more likely for mistakes to be made as well. When the individual is approached, they will manipulate the employers that everything is fine in order to keep their job. Another worry is putting their addictions before work, because the addict simply will put their own personal needs first, putting the present before the future.
Paragraph 4: Substance abusers effect the workforce when it becomes a problem within the company. Being absent from work, lacking motivation, having no phsycial and mental capability, weakness, unpredictiveness, and the more likely to make mistakes is all factors that cause the company to fail and cost the other employees more work and time. If the drug and alcohol is used outside the workforce, and has no effect on the workers performance, then it is considered a personal issue and cannot be invaded by the company.
Work Related Factors to Substance Misuse
Paragraph 1: Stress about work, or unemployment are other factors that lead to drug addictions. When an individual feels that they are lacking in their ability to succeed and move forward, they become reliable on substances.
The Companys Duty to Demonstrate Social Responsibility
Paragraph 1: Sources are available within companies to help deal with personal issues. Several companies have social support from phycologists, support networks, and financial assistance. Company’s are willing to deal with ex drug addicts as long as the to companys profit and productivity is not affected.
Managers’ attitudes towards the integration of (former) drug addicts into employment
Paragraph 1: There are four different types of attitudes among human resource managers looking to hire drug addicts: the closed-minded attitude, the tolerant attitude, the ambivalent attitude and, the supportive attitude.
There is a separate paragraph for each approach:
Closed-Minded attitude: Having a zero tolerance for drug addicts based on the reasoning that they are poor employees and they are not dependent as trustworthy workers. They see it as a high risk for the company to fail.
Supportive attitude: The idea to accept the individual of their drug issues based on different reasoning. Some managers find it to be descrimination if the person being interviewd reaches all the requirements and seems like a great worker, but they have drug addictions. There is a support system set up for these employees so they do not relapse and use drugs so that the company is not affected, and can continue productivity. The managers have a respective role to intervene if necessary.
Tolerant attitude: The managers are tolerant to employess who have served the company and have done great work that develop addictions through stress and work pace, and are willing to cope with their needs. Management, however, will not look to hire employees that have drug addictions because they have not proven good performance prior to so. It is classified as tolerant because management is fullfilling their responsability for employees.
Ambivalent attitude: Management finds drug addictions to be more of medical issue and needs to be dealt with by health institutions because the employee is in an ill stage. They want to help prevent the problem from becoming contagious in the work force and help reduce the impact in society.
Examination of the anchorage of social representations based on selected variables
The individuals that were examined are not all active managers, but people with qualifications in HR or management.
Training: Some managers have degrees in humanaties or social sciences rather than business. These people are more open to hiring recovered drug addicts. The training that one has when gaining their degree effects their overall opinion on coping with problems in different ways.
Gender: Women are more likely to have a negative perspective towards drug abuse than Men. Women tend to worry more about the overall risk of the company.
Company Size: It is more likely for larger companies to have more facilities to allow employees to go to for help and personal needs.
The concluding paragraph is just a summarization of everything I just wrote.
2nd Source
Reports highlight challenges of combating substance use in workplace
Paragraph 1: This introduces the article stating that information was gathered from a survey of HR professionals from the Hazelden Foundation.
Paragraph 2, 3& 4: Found that for the most part substance abuse occurs within companies that do not have drug testing policies. Some companies feel as though drug use is the biggest problem in their company, and others feel as though they have it completely under control. There is shame around addictions in our culture.
Paragraph 5 & 6: Some companies feel as though employee assistance programs is a waste of money. Businesses are finding that it becomes expensive, but still want to know if they can capture counseling programs within EAP.
**The second part of the article is cut off in the middle, and not accessable. Therefore I did not summarize the overdose section of the article. **
SAMHSA Report
Paragraph 1: This is a study on substance abuse in the workforce
Paragraph 2: The food industry and construction has the highest liklyhood of encountering drug users.
Paragraph 3: Transportation businesses used to be the highest industry with drug users, and now since they have mandatory testing it is one of the least companies to have employees with issues.
Paragraph 4: Employees with drug problems are more likely to be absent from work more, and have not been able to keep a stable job.
Paragraph 5: Users are more likely to not want to work for a company that enforces drug tests.
Paragraph 6: If a company does not enforce drug testing, then they are more likely to have employees that cope with addictions.
Hazelden Survey
Paragraph 1: There is a diconnect with HR managers that use treatment in the workforce and the assisting of employees.
Paragraph 2: Almost all HR professionals believe that substance treatment programs increase productive workers, but more than half believe that it does increase health care cost.
Paragraph 3: Companies do admit that they are not educated enough on addictions and drug use issues to cope with employees.
Paragraph 4: Some companies say that the chances of hiring a recovered addict is slim, and the other half disagrees.
Paragraph 5: Businesses that fire their employees when they find out of their addictions allows workers to wait until it is found out, rather than inform management to try to find help.
Paragraph 6: The top 3 negatives in having addict employees is skipping work, lack of productivness, and trust issues.
Possible Strategies
Paragraph 1 &2: A workplace would become better if there was more resources for addicts. It is important to have access to treatment at the workforce, but it does make things expensive.
Paragraph 3 &4: Private treatment has gown down, and public treatment has increased in the past several years. It does create some problems for companies who try to rush their employees through treatment because is is less effective.
Paragraph 5&6: It is important to educate employers to encounter better recognition skills of drug users so that the company will be aware and have intervention options. It is proven that having an addiction treatment professional available to the workforce can be an active role.
Negura, Lilian. “Hiring Substance abusers: Attitudes of managers and organizational needs.” Drugs Education Prevention and Policy. 15.2. April 2008. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 February. 2010.
1. The introduction just breifly described what the article was about the the lit review is a summarization of every paragraph of the article.
2. The author hooked my interst in asking questions in the beginning, and then answering them throughout the journal.
3. a) The purpose of the journal was to describe the different ways that management could deal with drug users in the workforce. b) This is important to my paper because it is the exact topic im researching. c) Attitudes of managers. d) quantitative research. e) The results I found were good for my research. They will help me when it comes to writing my paper. f) Great journal, I would reccomend it to anyone.
“Reports highlight challenges of combating substance use in workplace.” Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weekly. 19.28. (2007). 1-3. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 February. 2010.
1. The lit review of this article just breifly states what it would cover. The introduction gave an overall statement on the results.
2. This article was in a newsletter and it had great headings to each column that described the information perfectly.
3. a) The purpose was to summarize a survey and the information that was gathered. b) The importance of the article was how different companies have benefited from having support for drug users and the expense it does cost. c) 2 studies that describes treatment and intervention policies in the work place. d) They used data analysis based on a study. e) The results were similar to my previous source and are going to be effective in my research. f) This source is useful in some of the articles, but there were certain sections that were not relevant to my study.
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