Seasonal, Safety Sensitive, and in Need of a Solution

As our country and planet continue to grapple with the ongoing pandemic and its widespread effects, many businesses are facing employee shortages and struggling to fill open roles. Many of these same businesses continue to have safety-sensitive roles that require drug testing.

One company approached us last year because they were anticipating a big problem: Their seasonal business not only must manage several peak hiring seasons (meaning they need to hire many people in a short period of time), but many of the roles have safety-sensitive designations.

THE PLAN FOR THE DAY

This company wanted to use the HOUND^® CANNABIS BREATHALYZER during a simulated “job fair.” The company’s longstanding policy requires all new hires to take a pre-employment urine panel that screens for multiple drugs (including cannabis), but on the day we came on-site, they were also given the option to use the HOUND® CANNABIS BREATHALYZER in addition to the urine test. Because of our agreement with the company, the potential hires were welcome to decline without repercussions. However, after explaining that we were administering a new breath test that was developed to identify only recent cannabis use (not use from many days, weeks, or months ago, like the urine test could), about 95% of the candidates agreed.

RESULTS OF THE DAY

While our scientists, engineers, and research teams have been using the HOUND® CANNABIS BREATHALYZER with human subjects for years, it is always exciting for our customer success and product teams to have the opportunity to use it on location with actual customers. This event was a success in both our eyes and the eyes of the employer.

Over the course of the event, we were able to efficiently and successfully collect and process samples from approximately 20 people. This event helped Hound Labs, the employer, and the candidates to gain real-world experience to further understand how easily breath testing can be administered on location. The automated HOUND® CANNABIS BREATHALYZER made it easy for candidates to provide breath samples and for administrators to collect them. Regardless of the testing situation – pre-employment, post-hire, pre-access, post-accident, random – the HOUND® CANNABIS BREATHALYZER can provide a rapid, on-site test which gets an employee through the door in a short period of time.

Both the employer and the Hound Labs team also noted that although candidates had not received advance notice about cannabis breath testing and were not required to provide a breath sample, almost all of them were still willing to do so. Candidates recognized that this was a fairer approach than a traditional cannabis test. Both teams agreed that this was very encouraging, especially because in the future, the employer was planning to notify candidates in advance of the availability of cannabis breath testing.

Since founding the company, Hound Labs’ CEO, Dr. Mike Lynn, has focused not only on safety, but also on fairness. He wants employees to understand that the Hound^® solution can help their employer keep their workplace safe without penalizing them for legal off-hours cannabis use. Our experience on-site demonstrated that candidates were willing to work with employers to balance SAFETY AND FAIRNESS™.

NEXT STEPS

In the end, this customer was able to successfully hire enough employees for their 2021 season. They have pre-ordered, and we plan to ship their first commercial HOUND® CANNABIS BREATHALYZERS in time for 2022 hiring.

NOTE: This blog was inspired by real experiences with the HOUND^® CANNABIS BREATHALYZER.