Drug-Free Workplace Act (DFWA)

The Drug-Free Workplace Act (DFWA) was established to ensure that any qualifying organization with federal contracts maintains a drug-free working environment. DFWA guidelines require that all individuals or organizations receiving federal grants, and any individual or organization with a federal contract over $100,000 working within the U.S., must comply with DFWA regulations.

The DFWA has specific requirements for covered employers:

  1. Employers must develop and distribute a drug policy stipulating that the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession or use of controlled or illegal substances is prohibited and detailing adverse actions that will be taken against violators of the policy.
  2. Employers must implement a drug-free awareness program that includes information on: the dangers of drug abuse in the workplace; the employer’s drug policy; available drug counseling, rehabilitation, or employee assistance programs; and any penalties employees face for drug abuse.
  3. Employers must notify each employee that, as a condition of their employment on any federally contracted work, the employee must agree to abide by the terms of the drug policy and notify the employer within 5 days if convicted of a criminal drug violation.
  4. Employers must make a continuous, good faith effort to maintain a drug-free work environment.

In addition to the mandated drug policy, employers can demonstrate compliance and good faith effort by enacting a series of regularly distributed informational bulletins or trainings as part of a drug-free awareness program. It is advisable that employers track any and all efforts to create a drug-free workplace, which includes requiring employees to sign off on receipt of any informational documents. It is imperative that all employees, upon receipt and review of the employer’s drug policy, agree to abide by the requirements of the policy and certify that they have read and understood its contents.

How DocRead can help

DocRead is compliance software that works within SharePoint to make it possible for an employer to distribute documentation to specific user groups, certify that the documentation has been read, and monitor which employees have read the documentation.

In addition to ensuring that your documents are distributed to the appropriate employees, DocRead can assist in tracking and confirming that employees have received, read and agreed to the contents of your compliance documents.

DocRead provides a streamlined, paperless solution to managing important document distribution. Once you select a document to distribute and a user group to receive it, employees in the user group will be required to read the document and certify that they agree with all elements of the policy.

The certification message is fully configurable, allowing you to tailor the message to meet your specific requirements. Each employee must check the 'I agree' box and then click the 'confirm' button for the task to be considered completed.

Once employees have acknowledged their acceptance of the policy, they receive a time-stamped reading receipt that they may download or print for their records. Reading receipts are also securely stored in a central database, allowing quick access in case of audit or document request.

Should you require that a policy or notification be printed out, DocRead allows for the document to be opened in an application (such as MS Word, Adobe Reader, etc.) and printed out by the employee.

DocRead provides reading reports that can be used to monitor the progress of policy acceptance, clearly showing how many documents have been assigned, completed or are overdue.

DocRead can help

DocRead has been helping our customers managing their policies and procedures in SharePoint for over 12 years.