According to a recent UK survey of more than 2,500 workers in offices, factories, retail establishments and the public sector, 85% admitted being drunk in the workplace in the last twelve months, and over a quarter admitted using drugs at work - whether "legal highs" or illegal substances such as cannabis.
Of those who used alcohol in the workplace, over a third of respondents confirmed that their capacity to do their work was affected by drinking at least once a week, and 14% of factory workers admitted to drinking alcohol at lunchtime and then operating machinery in the afternoon.
I must confess to being rather shocked by these findings; I had hoped the days of the boozy lunch were by now rightly consigned to history - along with exhortations to have "one for the road".
Apparently not.
Just a bit of fun? For an office worker, the consequences of not being entirely compos mentis at work might just be feeling drowsy and making more errors than usual - which could be detrimental to the business, but is hardly a life and death situation.
Some people might find the thought of their boss or a senior colleague tripping over their words, giggling uncontrollably, or letting their guard down in some other way, rather amusing...
But if that office worker is still under the influence when it is time to drive home, they are at an increased risk of having a road traffic accident.
And in a factory or on a building site, the consequences of operating machinery or working at height while not fully focused on the task at hand could be fatal.
Just last month a client advised me that one of his company car drivers had been involved in an accident while driving home after a party.
Both the company car and the other vehicle involved in the collision were damaged beyond repair, although mercifully nobody was injured.
It could have been so much worse.
I was reminded of a situation at work many years ago.
An employee was driving back from a football match on a Saturday evening with his two young children and a family friend, when their car was hit by a Land Rover that was out of control.
The employee was stone cold sober; the other driver was three times over the limit.
The employee was saved by the airbag.
Everyone else was killed instantly.
The employee spent ten weeks in hospital and the best part of a year recovering from his injuries.
He rang me one lunchtime needing to talk.
Silent tears streamed down my face as I listened to him describing his children's funeral, all of them innocent victims of somebody who was drunk behind the wheel.
It was certainly beyond my capability to imagine how he must be feeling.
Case studies Over the years I have dealt with numerous other workplace situations relating to alcohol and drugs, thankfully none as ghastly as that one.
When I was a health and safety coordinator I would regularly remind my colleagues in the run up to corporate events (sales conferences, the Christmas party etc.
) not only of the risk of making fools of themselves under the influence of alcohol, but also of still being unfit to drive the following morning if they were up carousing until the early hours.
Thankfully the message hit home, and I did not have to deal with anybody else being injured, or even just losing their licence, on account of "the morning after the night before".
When I worked in manufacturing, rumour had it (although it was never proven) that we had a local drug pusher on our payroll.
He was caught with a small amount of drugs in his possession and served a short custodial sentence for possession, but was not convicted of dealing.
As sheet metal fabricators there was all kinds of dangerous machinery in the factory; the thought of any of it being operated by somebody under the influence of a mind-altering substance was beyond the pale.
In conjunction with the Trade Union, which fully supported our stance on Health and Safety grounds, we adopted a zero tolerance approach to both alcohol and drugs, and introduced a policy that permitted testing both "for cause" (i.
e.
if there was a reasonable suspicion that somebody was under the influence of a mind altering substance) and at random.
We could not dismiss our suspected dealer, but at least we could deter any future misdemeanours within the workplace.
And in another organisation I vividly recall receiving an urgent request to go to a colleague's private office, where a warehouse operative was being questioned by his manager.
The employee had glassy eyes and a vacant expression, he was slurring his words, and the office reeked of alcohol.
He was protesting that he was not drunk - he had only had one glass of cider at lunchtime, as he did every day.
Fellow employees had witnessed him weaving across the floor of the warehouse, in the vicinity of fork lift trucks, clearly not in possession of his faculties, and alerted the manager.
Apparently this was not the first time he had been like that after lunch.
Half a dozen witnesses confirmed their view that this individual had an alcohol dependency problem.
Following a disciplinary procedure he was summarily dismissed.
You need an appropriate policy All these examples illustrate the importance of having a policy on drugs and alcohol in the workplace, linked to your disciplinary procedures, that is appropriate to the environment in which you are operating.
A policy will send out a firm message to your employees about what is and is not acceptable behaviour, and enable you to take decisive action if the rules are flouted.
In the case studies above, we were able to dismiss our cider-drinking warehouseman without repercussions because our policy stated that being unfit to work due to alcohol or other mind-altering substances was gross misconduct.
In the other case, the absence of a policy permitting testing for alcohol and illicit substances meant we were unable to take action against the suspected drug dealer.
If you are engaged in any kind of manual labour, or your people operate machinery, or drive on business, it is likely that you will take a zero tolerance approach.
On the other hand, if you are in the hospitality sector for example, you may decide that moderate and responsible alcohol consumption is acceptable in certain circumstances, and that action will only be taken against an individual who is clearly unfit to work.
Whatever your stance, if you have an Employee Handbook, or a Health and Safety Policy, you should include a section about alcohol and drugs.
Even if you only have a Disciplinary Procedure, make sure that being under the influence of drugs or alcohol at work is a specific example of either misconduct or gross misconduct, depending on the nature of your work and the risks involved in your workplace.
Once you have a policy in place, enforce it consistently and set a good example yourself.
If you turn a blind eye to misconduct by a senior manager or key employee, you will undermine your credibility as well as your ability to take action against others.
Being drunk or stoned, whether operating a machine or behind the wheel of a car, really isn't funny, and having to deal with the aftermath of a road traffic accident or industrial injury is not something I would wish on anybody.