Reply #31: Home Depot's drug test policy

[jmowreader]

Reasons we test people for drugs:

1. Pre-employment screening--if you want to wear the orange apron, you've got to fill the bottle first. This goes for everyone who wants to work for us--Bob Nardelli had to pee before he was hired, and he's the CEO--and all large retailers (and most smaller ones) do it now.

2. Reasonable-suspicion testing--if you act like you're drunk or high and you're on the clock, you're going to be taken for testing. (Semi-scary tale: we had to fire a guy last summer because we caught him smoking a joint while he was moving pallets of plants with a forklift.)

3. Post-accident testing--this is self-explanatory.

4. Pre-promotion testing--regular associate to department supervisor, department supervisor to assistant store manager, ASM to store manager, store manager to district manager, DM to regional manager...the only things past that are divisional vice president and CEO, and all the ones we have were hired from outside the company. Also, if you're being moved to a position that handles a very large sum of money, such as the store accounting desk, you'll be tested.

I have read the entire Home Depot drug test policy. It doesn't allow for random testing, it only allows for urine, blood or saliva testing (no hair testing) and it only allows management to test according to guidelines set down by Atlanta. They may at one time have allowed random testing, but it's not allowed anymore. OTOH, I can imagine that Wal-Mart allows it.