Fitness for work and a drug and alcohol policy for crews

A builder who runs a site is responsible for the health and safety of the people working on it, and that includes people the builder did not hire directly. A worker who arrives at the gate unfit to do the job, because of alcohol, a drug, a prescribed medicine or a state of mind that has taken them past safe work, puts everyone within reach at risk. The electrician who cannot judge a cable run, the labourer on a ladder and the operator of a skid steer are all exposed to a fault they did not cause and cannot see coming.

Most builders know this in principle. Fewer have a written policy that tells a supervisor, at the moment it matters, what to do. Without one, the response depends on the supervisor’s judgement on the day, the personality of the worker and whether the foreman has already had a bad morning. Inconsistent responses are themselves a problem. They look unfair to the worker who is sent home and the one who is let off, and they make it hard to show that the business took its duties seriously.

This article covers fitness for work as it applies to a residential site: what a written policy should contain, how the supervisor responds when a worker appears impaired, and how subcontractors and records fit in. It is deliberately separate from fatigue scheduling, which is a different question about hours and rest, covered in our article on fatigue management on building sites. Read it alongside your own legal advice, because testing and privacy rules are specific and should be checked before the policy is adopted.

What impairment looks like on a building site

Impairment is not limited to a worker who has been drinking at lunch. It can come from alcohol the night before, from an illicit drug, from a prescribed medicine taken as directed that makes a person drowsy or unsteady, from an over-the-counter remedy that causes the same effect, or from a health event or a state of distress that affects concentration and coordination. The effect on the job is what matters. A worker whose judgement or reaction time is reduced is a risk regardless of the cause, and the policy should be written around the effect.

The signs are usually visible to anyone who is paying attention. Slurred or unusually slow speech, a smell of alcohol, unsteady movement, poor coordination with tools, repeating instructions, unusual irritability or a sudden change from the worker’s normal manner are common indicators. None of them proves the cause. A supervisor is not a doctor and should not try to diagnose anyone. The supervisor’s job is to notice that a worker may not be fit to work safely and to act on that observation in a consistent way.

The difficulty is that the signs are easy to explain away. A tired worker who has had a bad night, a worker with a cold, or someone who simply talks slowly can look similar to a worker who should not be on the tools. That is why the policy should focus on the observed effect on safe work, and why the response should protect the worker’s dignity whichever explanation turns out to be right.

What a written policy must cover

A workable policy is short enough to read and specific enough to act on. It should begin with scope: who is covered. On a residential site that means employees, subcontractors and their workers, labour hire staff, delivery drivers working on site and visitors. A policy that applies only to the builder’s own crew leaves the biggest gap, because the people most likely to arrive unfit are often the ones with the least direct oversight.

The policy should then state the standard. It should say that no person may work, or attempt to work, while impaired by alcohol, illicit drugs or any other substance or condition that affects their ability to work safely. It should say that workers must declare any prescribed or over-the-counter medicine that may affect them, and that the declaration is confidential and is used only to decide whether work can be done safely. The policy should also explain what happens when a worker declares a medicine. Usually that means a conversation about the duties and the work, not a diagnosis.

Next, the policy should set out the response: what the supervisor does when an impaired worker is identified, who else is told and what happens to the worker’s employment or engagement. Keep this section plain. A worker who reads the policy should know in advance that they will be removed from the work, that they will not be left to drive themselves, and that the business will follow up with them in a respectful way.

Finally, the policy should cover testing, support and records. Testing is the most legally sensitive part, and the rules about when and how testing may be carried out, what notice must be given, and how results are handled should be checked before any testing is introduced. The policy should name who holds the records and how long they are kept. It should also point workers toward support, such as their own doctor or a counselling service, without pretending the business can treat a substance problem itself.

The supervisor’s response when a worker appears impaired

The supervisor’s response should be the same every time, because consistency is what makes the policy fair. The steps below are a sensible sequence, and the policy should record them in the supervisor’s own words so there is no doubt about what is expected.

The first step is to stop the work, and to do it calmly. The worker should be taken out of any task that involves plant, heights, electricity, cutting tools or moving loads, and moved to a safe place on the site, away from equipment and other workers. The supervisor should not confront the worker in front of the crew or raise voices. A calm, private request is more likely to get a cooperative response and less likely to escalate into a scene that other workers remember.

The second step is to keep the worker from driving. An impaired worker who gets into a vehicle is a risk to the public as well as to themselves. Arrange transport home, or a taxi or rideshare paid for by the business, and make sure the worker is not left alone if they are still unwell. If the worker needs medical attention, call for it. Do not wait to see whether the worker improves.

The third step is to record what was seen and when. Write down the observations in plain terms: the speech, the balance, the smell, what the worker said and did, and the time. Do not record a guess about the cause. A contemporaneous note is more useful than a memory reconstructed a week later, and it protects the supervisor as much as the worker. Keep the note with the job file and restrict who can read it.

The fourth step is to tell the business, and to decide with the business whether anything else must be done. Where the impairment is connected with an incident, the rules for reporting and responding to incidents apply, and our article on responding to notifiable incidents in NSW sets out the process to check. Do not assume that a near miss is not reportable because nobody was hurt.

Workers on prescribed medicine

Prescribed medicine is the hardest part of the policy to get right, because the worker is doing what a doctor told them and may have no idea that it affects their work. The policy should not punish a worker for taking medicine as prescribed. It should ask them to declare any medicine that may affect their alertness or coordination, and it should give them a confidential way to do so.

Once a declaration is made, the business should look at the work the person does and the effect the medicine may have on it. Some tasks may need to be changed for a period, such as working near plant or at height. Some workers can continue normally. The conversation should focus on the duties rather than the diagnosis, and the business should not ask for medical details beyond what is needed to make a safe decision. Ask the worker to check with their doctor or pharmacist about the effect of the medicine on working safely, and let the worker bring back the answer.

Health information is sensitive, and it should be kept apart from the ordinary personnel file. Limit who sees it, use it only for the safety decision, and do not mention it to the crew. A supervisor who tells the crew that a worker is on medication has created a privacy problem and a reason for the worker not to declare the next time.

Subcontractors, induction and the contract

Most of the people on a residential site are not employed by the builder, and the policy has to reach them. The simplest way is to make compliance a condition of the subcontract, so that the subcontractor agrees in writing to the standard, to the response and to the removal of any worker who is impaired. The subcontract should also say that the subcontractor is responsible for its own workers and their fitness to do the work, while the builder keeps the power to remove any worker from the site.

The site induction is the place to explain the policy to every worker before they start. The induction should cover the standard, the declaration process for medicine, the steps the supervisor will take and the support available. Record that the induction was completed and by whom. A worker who has never been told the rule cannot be fairly removed under it, and a builder who cannot show the induction has a gap in the paperwork at the worst possible time.

Keeping records that stand up later

The records are what turn a policy into evidence. Keep the written policy, the signed induction, the subcontract clause, the supervisor’s notes of any removal and the outcome of each case. Keep medicine declarations separate from the personnel file and restrict them to the people who need them. A policy that exists only on the office computer, or a note written on the back of an envelope, will not persuade anyone that the business acted properly.

Records should also show consistency. If two workers were removed for impairment and one was not, the difference should be explained in the file. A consistent record is the best answer to the suggestion that the policy was applied selectively. Review the policy after each case and after any change in the law, and record the review date on the policy itself.

Worked example: a plasterer who arrives unsteady

A builder in western Sydney was running a renovation with a plastering subcontractor who had worked on several of the business’s jobs without trouble. On one wet morning the plasterer arrived early and was clearly unsteady. His speech was slow, he had trouble with the ladder, and the supervisor noticed a smell of alcohol. The plasterer said he had not had much and that he was fine to work. The supervisor had the policy in the site file and had been trained to use it, so the response did not depend on the mood of the moment.

The supervisor moved the plasterer away from the ladder and the scaffold, and asked him to sit in the site office in private. The supervisor did not argue about the cause. He said that the business could not let anyone work in that state, that the work would be reassigned for the day, and that the business would organise transport home. The plasterer objected at first, then accepted the lift, which was arranged and paid for under the policy. The supervisor wrote down what he had seen, when he saw it and what was said, and placed the note in the job file.

The builder then contacted the subcontractor the same morning, referred to the clause in the subcontract, and asked the subcontractor to confirm in writing that the worker would not return until the business had been satisfied that he could work safely. The builder did not decide the cause. The subcontractor arranged a medical check, and the worker was back on site after a short absence with a written confirmation. The builder updated the policy afterwards to make the notification to the subcontractor an explicit step. The business had not been clear about that before, and the supervisor had been left to work out who to call.

Reviewing the policy with the crew

A policy that is written once and forgotten will not change behaviour. Walk the crew through it at induction, revisit it at toolbox talks when a new subcontractor starts, and invite questions. Ask the supervisors what would make the response easier to carry out on a bad morning. Their answers are the best source of changes, because they are the people who have to act on the policy when it counts.

The wider obligations that come with running a residential building business are part of what licensed builders are expected to keep current. PointCPD’s guide to how NSW builder CPD works sets out how those obligations fit together, and it is a useful place to check that the safety side of the business is being kept up to date alongside the rest.

Questions builders ask

• Site Safety
• Work Health Safety
• Workforce

Published 21 October 2026. General information for builders, not legal, financial or engineering advice for a specific job. Check current requirements with the relevant regulator or standard before relying on them.