Response of U.S.A. owned hotels to the drug-free workplace act of 1988: A Case study

Alcohol and drug abuse has been causing tremendous problems in American workforces everyday. The misuse of alcohol and drug finally lead the government to react to the problems. In March 1989, Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 went into effect, establishing the goal of a drug-free workplace. The purpose of this study is to find out how 14 major U.S. owned hotels are responding to Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988. In order to find out, a 10 item questionnaire was developed and used to interview human resources executives. From the sample of 14 hotels, 11 hotels (78.5%) responded. The survey results showed that 63.6% of hotels have responded directly to the Act of 1988. However, 90% ofhotels have had written policies on alcohol and substance abuse which can be interpreted as maybe some hotels were not aware of the Act of 1988. Also, 90% of hotels provide education programs on alcohol and drug problems, as well as treatment programs (72.7%). Most hotels use outside treatment programs, while only a few hotels (18%) have in-house programs or the combination of in-house and outside programs. For some cases, even if they do not have a treatment program, they at least have alternative programs to assist troubled employees. One interesting factor was that only 27.2% of hotels responding said they required drug- screening tests, however, 64% of hotels required drug tests according to their written policies on alcohol and drug abuse. Therefore, quite a few respondents may not be aware of their own policies, or the policies are not applied as what it is stated. Most hotels (72.7%) see the problem quite seriously. On a scale of 1 (less serious) to 5 (very serious), the mean was 3.5. The remaining hotels did not respond to this question