Training in Shreveport, LA

I am out of the office this week so this month’s newsletter is being written on board airplanes, in hotel rooms, and during breaks. This week I am conducting DOT Reasonable Suspicion Supervisor Training sessions for driver supervisors of a national regulated motor carrier in their Shreveport, LA location. Spring has already arrived in Louisiana and I am reluctant to return to two to four more weeks of winter in Pennsylvania, according to “Phil the Groundhog;” the expert Pennsylvania weather man.

Many DOT regulated companies question the need for extensive supervisor training. The DOT regulations require at least one hour of training for supervisors of regulated drivers on the signs and symptoms or drug use/abuse as well as an additional one hour of training on the signs and symptoms of alcohol use/abuse. Without training, a DOT supervisor cannot make “reasonable suspicion” observations under DOT rules and therefore cannot mandate reasonable cause testing.

My twenty years of experience have shown that two hours is not enough time to properly train supervisors. Four hours is the minimum time that is needed for proper training. Today and tomorrow, I will be leading two separate four-hour training sessions for two separate groups of driver supervisors.

Beside the legal requirements for companies to provide this training, DOT supervisor training is a wonderful opportunity to enhance a supervisor’s skills in other related areas. The program I developed at Concorde gives supervisors a better understanding of the DOT drug and alcohol regulations, a better understanding of their own company’s drug and alcohol policy, and the ability to constructively confront an employee with a workplace problem that may be due to drug or alcohol abuse or other problems. We teach them the skills needed to enforce workplace rules and to improve safety and, ultimately, the bottom line of their company.

I have been conducting supervisor training sessions for many years. I am always surprised and shocked at how few supervisors have actually read their own company’s policies. How do you referee a game if you don’t know the rules? Many of the skills we teach help supervisors manage other problems in the workplace that are not just related to drugs and alcohol.

How many of you have read all of your company’s workplace rules in the last year? Do you know if your employer has a search policy? What is their policy for use of prescription drugs? What type of documentation must an employee produce if they are using legal drugs? Under what circumstances can you ask an employee to be tested? What if they refuse? What options must you give an employee before asking them to be tested? How accurate are DOT drug and alcohol tests and can you always depend upon the results? What type of documentation do you need to do a reasonable cause test and do you need a witness? If you don’t know the answers to all of these questions it’s time to pull out your company’s policy, read it, and ask your Human Resource department for guidance with policy items that are not clear. The time to do this is now, not after a workplace incident occurs.