Estimation of Costs Associated with
Employee Drug and Alcohol Use
 
This worksheet is provided to give business owners an idea of some of the costs associated with drug and alcohol abuse. For this example, we have used the average cost of an employee, which includes salary, benefits and overhead to be $30,000.
 
FACT ESTIMATED COSTS YOUR ACTUAL COSTS
Employees using drugs and/or alcohol on the job are 1/3 less productive.

1/3 x $30,000 = $10,000 (there are usually 2080 hrs/ work year.

$10,000
 
They are absent three times more often.

Estimating that the average employee misses 10 days/yr.

Estimating that the abuser misses 30 working days/yr.

$30,000 yr = $115/working day x30 days = $3,450

$3,450
 
They are late three times more often. Estimating that the average employee is an hour late 10 times/yr.

$30,000/2,080 = $14.42 per hr x 10 = $144.20 x 3 = $432.60.

$433
 
They are five times more likely to file a Worker’s Compensation claim.

Estimating cost/employee = $500 x 5 = $2,500

$2,500
 
They have 3.6 times more accidents than other employees.

Estimating the average accident costs in either property, down time, injury to customer or other employees = $500

Estimating the average number of accidents per employee/yr. = 1 1 x $500 x 3.6 = $1,800

$1,800
 
Your Estimated Cost for each employee with these problems
$18,183