Hello,

Looking for advice at what level other orgnisations set their failure level for breath alcohol testing? I know there is an argument for and against zero tolerance, I was thinking of setting below the scottish driving limit but with a small level of tolerance. 

Any advice on figures used elsewhere would be appreciated

Where does your business operate?

If it is solely in Scotland then the driving limit would be a suitable readily inderstood value, if England or Wales then your workforce will be used to a higher limit for driving and if N.I. lower limtes apply to professional & novice drivers.

Who are your workforce?

Plenty of debate but are these "Safety Critical" positions or just any employee?

This is one of the problems with having an alcohol testing policy: what limit you should use?

Zero limit is great in theory but   if you go for this there is a chance of   a false positive because the person has used a mouth wash containing alcohol or eaten something that has fermented.  How do you weed out those results?

The legal driving limit on alcohol is not really based on an assessment of risk. It does not mean that below the limit you are safe and above you are at significantly greater risk of having an accident. It is really based on what the limits for detection were back in the day when the regulations were first proposed. Many countries now have lower limits but we have kept ours at for political reasons, which is why the limits are lower in Scotland.  Other countries limits are similar to Scotland or even lower.

Really what you should be looking at is the effect of drinking on your employees and whether that makes their job more dangerous.  Back in the really old days before breathalysers etc it was assumed that you had to be completely drunk before alcohol had any effect. It was only after doing proper research that it was established that even relatively small amounts of alcohol can have an effect on a person’s driving, in particular their hazard perception.   

So, you should have a policy that makes it clear that drinking on the job is unacceptable and make sure that everybody follows it.

Managers should be trained to spot the signs of drinking and then you can look at testing. The level of testing is less important than the fact that you have a clear, fully supported policy and in particular the employees will know what happens if they get caught. You should also be aware that hardened drinkers will be skilled at hiding their drinking habits and have excuses ready for any result that you might regard as positive.  The international dimension will make this policy difficult to enforce as there will be different perceptions of what is acceptable drinking.  In Spain getting completely legless is regarded as disgusting and something that only British tourists do but having a shot of brandy with your breakfast croissant before you drive to work is seen as fine.

Peter,

We are looking at setting it above 0 so we dont get false readings as the previous poster mentioned. Also our clients tend to follow driving limits either England or Scotland and we want to set a high standard in our workforce so setting a low limit should help send this message.

The message will be very clear that we are setting a level that we think is realistic for it to impact behaviours particularly as we are working on very high risk sites. 

There is no intention to catch out or sack people as this will be part of a policy which offers support throughout and to help tackle any root causes of failures.

But we do expect employees turn up for work fit to work and this testing will be for all levels not just operatives. And if they are avoiding tests they may well not be the right person anyway. 

And if your company has expectation to call in employees at short notice especially where rosta days off / or holidays are concerned? Most work to live and given the majority of our week is not paid working hours expect to be able to enjoy our time away from the work environment.

So set a "tight limit" BUT ensure you have joined up policy and practices to support this. Working for one employer we adhered to the zero approach for track side whilst ensuring only those on rosta were called to cover any absence. Not on rosta = Not available. Give it a few years and someone will be calling an employee enjoying a barbecue the night before to come in for overtime on a day off and the poor sod will be on the receiving end of a random test whilst still being legally fit to drive.

And pardon my sceptiscism but I have yet to see that particular forum post - "My MD / CEO just failed a random alcohol test what should I do?" With the number of D&A policies all claiming equality in the workplace simple statistical reasoning says it should have happened by now. The absence of such a post indicates that despite policy wording.........