Drug Testing Ethical Dilemmas

Another ethical dilemma which the human resource department faces with employees is when it comes to drug testing. According to Wooten (2001), drug testing becomes an invasion of privacy and hence has to be dealt cautiously. The concern arises when only few of the employees are suspected of this but all of them have to endure the indignity of the test. There is a “right” thing to do and a “just” action to consider. To come to a decision, various aspects of the organization need to be focused. The financial division provides us with the economic benefit of the worker productivity and also calculates the cost of the drug testing. As stated by Wooten (2001), financial impacts can be easily measured and compared. The second aspect is the legality

The true issue arises when an innocent person is discharged. Hence legal content needs to be strongly considered when a number of lawsuits leading to costly affairs are anticipated. The third part is the organizational factor. According to Wooten (2001), the overall approach on the members of the organization can be both harmful as well as beneficial. Harmful with respect to unwanted discharge of the employee, and beneficial for the organization to be drug free or provision of treatment for those who tested positive. However, this is often neglected during the process. Social aspects include the impact of these decision on outside parties like the suppliers, distributers, and customers. Drug testing may not have such an adverse impact on the people outside the organization but when it comes to other dilemmas, the more productivity of the workers, the more competitive it is which eventually benefits the suppliers, distributers and customers. Personal factors may not be affected much in drug testing but in other ethical dilemmas like downsizing or closure, adequate consideration should be given to the employees or else it can have an adverse impact on the manager’s

Not only do the professionals have to decide on the immediate needs of their patients but also on their future. Ethics has increasingly become a required component of clinical practice. According to Ulrich et al. (2013), many healthcare professionals suffer from stress-related disorders which originate in job duties like protection of patients’ rights, respect to autonomy, informed consent for treatment, and staffing patterns which are impacted by the increasing demand for clear ethical standards in their decision making process. It is therefore imperative for organizations to develop standardized policies and guidelines for education in ethics to help their staff members to carry out