Employee with drinking problem
BetteS
6 Posts
We have an employee who has come to work under the influence of alcohol, tardy on several occasions and missed work completely due to his alcohol abuse. We have disciplined him with warnings, time off without pay and told him that if it continues his employment will be terminated. He has never admitted to having a drinking problem. We would like to ask him to seek professional help and give him the time off to complete a treatment program. Are we out of line to suggest that he has a problem? Can we force him to enter an alcohol abuse program? What are our options? We do not have an EAP so your assistance is much appreciated. Help!!
Comments
For me, just responding to your post & not delving into any more specifics - if you have gone so far as to write an employee up, have suspended them without pay, and even threaten termination - why doesn't your company simply go through with the threat? Why don't they simply terminate the employee? I'm unclear as to why it's important for anyone at your company to have the employee admit to a drinking problem or for the company to even seek out/force some type of professional help. Again, why not simply terminate employment?
I know many folks will mention ADA issues - so, hold on to your seat x:-)
We have had this same experience. We fired the ee for poor performance and attendance. Beware...if you catch them at the wrong time the termed ee can be very upset (ours was certain threats made towards me and I didn't have anything to do with it). It was the wakeup call the ee needed and he sought help and later came in to apologize.
ADA is silent on alcoholism unlike drug addiction.
Courts have held that if the alcoholism has been clincially diagnosed (by an approrpiate healthcare provider) and the individual's alcoholism significnatly impairs one or more major life activities, the employee is then considered disabled under ADA. There is NO REQUIREMENT that the employee then go through a rehab program to become eligible for ADA. As others have said, the employee's use of alcohol on the job or reporting to work in an impaired manner, if in violation of the company's policy, may result in disciplinary action and/or discharge even if the employee is disabled under ADA. There is no "protection" in this regard under ADA for current use of alcohol or alcoholic impairment on the job.
How do you know he's an alcoholic? Has he presented any medical evidence to show that he is (merely relying on his unspported cliam that he is, is not sufficient under ADA; you want to make sure that you don't treat him as an alcoholic if he is not).
As others have noted, you still need to concentrate on the performance issues.
Keep the ADA option open. But he doesn't have to use it. If he doesn't then continue to hold him accountable for poor performance right up through the day you have to fire him. If he does at some point seek reasonable accommodation on a claim of alcoholism and submits appropriate documentation (through the interative proces), then you will be required to deal with ADA and reasonable accommdation then. However, you wouldn't have to "excuse" his past poor performance, but you would, if he is ADA-disabled, need to take a look at what could be done at that point.