Substance abuse costs Oregon business millions of dollars annually due to related absenteeism, tardiness, accidents, sickness and theft. An effective drug-free workplace policy can dramatically reduce many of these problems.
Serenity Lane’s Employer Services offers assistance in the following ways:
- Establishing a drug free workplace policy. If one already exists, a review is usually helpful.
- Training supervisors to recognize signs of substance abuse, and develop skills necessary to intervene and communicate about related performance problems.
- Helping employers to appropriately manage issues related to positive urine screens at the work site.
- Assisting supervisors to resolve immediate work site problems through phone consultation with experienced professionals.
- Coordinating disability benefits for qualifying employees.
- Reintegrating employees into the workplace.
- Monitoring compliance of employees involved in “return to work agreements”, through timely documentation. Patient monitoring (Blue Flag Program) is a value added program that tracks mandated clients through the treatment process, and reports monthly on each client’s progress.
Jerry Gjesvold, Manager of Employer Services, covers the state of Oregon as Serenity Lane’s liaison for business and industry helping to identify substance abuse. He conducts educational seminars and supervisory training, and oversees the Patient Monitoring system for employers. Mr. Gjesvold advises about last chance agreements between employers and workers, as well as consults on all aspects of an employee’s reintegration into the workforce. He provides case management and support to both employers and employees while utilizing his many years experience as a counselor and negotiator.