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stressed his operations: "Having to p lace the one who failed elsewhere
created grief." Another problem was that daily testing took a lot of
time because there were not enough terminals (which are expensive).
Because employees could not start working before their test, time was
wasted. Staff time was also consumed by monitoring the testing process. 
Additionally, some employees have schedules not conducive to testing.
E.g., salespeople ordinarily do not report to the office until they have
made their morning calls in the field, and long-distance truck drivers
work odd shifts. Validity concerns. One general manager asserted that
employees who felt and behaved normally could not always pass the test,
even if they thought they were doing well. Another reported that some
days, the program seemed much harder than others. On "easy" days, he
explained, the cursor moved very little; on "hard" days, it moved all
over. Employees at these organizations grew to believe that whether they
passed or failed depended on chance. And one doubtful supervisor, who
experimented during his off hours by trying out the test when he was
inebriated, concluded that the test lacked validity after he passed it
in his impaired state. Challenges to privacy. Some employees perceived 
testing as an imposition, rather than as a boon for their welfare. Those
with excellent performance records complained about having to submit to
daily testing. Further, people knew who failed and there was a stigma
attached to failing. Test-taking anxiety. Respondents told me that some
older employees had computerphobia. (Indeed, Sharit and Czaja, 1994,
observed that older people may have difficulty learning computer
skills.)
 
Additionally, some other employees, regardless of their age, lost sleep 
worrying about their daily duel with the computer. Although Burke, 
Normand, and Raju (1987) found that attitudes toward
computer-administered tests were generally positive, it should be noted
that their sample consisted of clerical office workers -- a group that
does not ordinarily perform safety-sensitive work and is therefore not
ordinarily made to take a fitness-for-duty test. Supervisors. Not only
did supervisors dislike dealing with subordinates' complaints, but they
thought the testing program preempted their authority. They resented
that the test result prevailed as the deciding factor even if they
deemed their subordinates fit for work. 
 
When asked to account for these complaints, PFI's Chief Technology 
Officer Marc Silverman (personal communication, 11/21/94) countered that
technology (i.e., the hardware and software of the test itself) is less
important in the success of Factor 1000 than how management implements
the testing program.
 
Having consulted with clients to design appropriate policies and 
procedures, he believes that organizations that are concerned about
their employees' safety and welfare and have amicable labor-management
relations generally have greater success with an impairment testing
program. He seems to attribute failures of organizational testing
efforts to faulty client implementation rather than to any flaws with
his company's product.
 
Interviews with Current Users of Fitness-for-Duty Testing
 
Based on my conversations with representatives of companies that had 
abandoned their fitness-for-duty testing program, as well as the
asserted assets and drawbacks of such testing discussed earlier, I
designed an interview for representatives of organizations currently
conducting impairment testing (see Appendix A).
 
Although all questions were asked of all respondents in the sample, the 
order varied depending on each respondent's particular comments.
 
As reported earlier, only a handful of organizations conduct 
fitness-for-duty testing. Although half of the organizations I contacted
were found in trade publications (some organizations, apparently, are
happy to gain publicity for their innovativeness), I depended on the
test manufacturers for the names of the others. I spoke with
representatives (two presidents, two human resources directors, and two
managers) of four West Coast clients of Performance Factors's Factor
1000 (a municipality, a petroleum distributor, an ambulance service, and
a resort) and two mid-Atlantic clients of Essex's Delta-WP (a contractor
of security guards and a pharmaceuticals concern).
 
In four of the six organizations in the sample, only those employees in 
safety-sensitive positions take fitness-for-duty tests. In one of the 
other two, the executive staff also takes the test, to show support, and
in the other, everyone in the organization takes the test, in the name
of solidarity and fairness. Test-takers at these organizations include
emergency medical technicians, paramedics, security personnel, drivers
of motorized vehicles, machinery/equipment operators, maintenance
workers, scientists, inspectors, and those responsible for children.
 
At five of the six organizations in the sample, even employees with 
outstanding records take a fitness-for-duty test every day. Respondents 
explained that daily testing guarantees safety, and, as such, is the 
cornerstone of this type of program. The following comments, from three
respondents, are representative:
 
* We need to know if they're fit for duty.
* We have to be sure. 
* It wouldn't be an effective program otherwise. Judging future 
performance test results from past ones is as useless as using 
pre-employment testing and never testing again.
 
At one organization, management considered retesting employees who work 
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