Implementation Guidelines - Federal Transit Administration - U.S. ...

The 60 minutes of awareness training is
required only once in the employee’s tenure
with the company. One hour of training
should be considered a minimum. The time
may be exceeded if necessary. Because of
the volume of information that must be
covered, some transit agencies have found 2
to 3 hours to be more appropriate.
Depending on the employeemanagement
relationship and the unique
needs of the employer’s workforce, the
employer may also choose to exceed the
minimum requirement by providing
refresher training. If an employer does so,
the employer must specify that the
additional requirements are set forth under
the employer’s authority and not the FTA.
For systems establishing new drug and
alcohol testing programs, the employee
training should occur before the time of
program inception. For systems that have
programs established and have already
conducted their initial employee training, no
additional training is required, except for
new hires or transfers into safety-sensitive
positions. However, many systems have
found it beneficial to provide employee
briefings in response to major regulatory or
policy changes.
New hires should receive copies of your
drug and alcohol program notification,
policy, and education materials. In most
cases, the 60 minutes of training are
incorporated into the employee orientation.
Section 2. TRAINING FOR
SUPERVISORS
You must provide additional training for
supervisors or other company officials who
are authorized to determine when it is
appropriate to administer reasonable
suspicion drug and/or alcohol tests.
Supervisors play a critical role in
administering the program policies; and they
are responsible for maintaining safety and
productivity. Supervisors must determine
when an employee’s speech, behavior, body
odor, or appearance provides “reasonable
suspicion” that the employee has used or
consumed prohibited drugs or alcohol in
violation of the FTA regulation. A
reasonable suspicion determination requires
that a drug and/or alcohol test must be
administered.
Only one supervisor’s opinion is
necessary to require a reasonable suspicion
test, so it is important that you provide
adequate training to determine when a test is
needed. Employers who wish to have more
than one supervisor involved in the decisionmaking
process may do so as long as those
involved have received the requisite training
and have drawn their conclusion based on
their own observations.
Chapter 5. Training 5-4 August 2002