Fit For Duty Exam

Your Guide to Fitness-For-Duty Testing

The fitness-for-duty policy has proved to be essential for employees and the employer in keeping the staff fit and healthy.

Do You Have Employees That Are Fit and Safe for their Jobs?

Employees here, refer to;

• The new hires,
• Older workers assigned to a new assignment,
• Workers who show observed behavioral or psychosocial changes,
• And existing employees coming back to work after recovering from a severe injury.

Traditionally, most of the new employees suffer injuries than the older ones. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 40% of work-related injuries per annum come from workers on the job less than a year. Most new young employees don't know their workplace vulnerabilities, mainly because they are young, inexperienced and may have never worked before, so they get injured early on.

For older employees assigned to new tasks, although they have experience, but does the value still remain and is it still useful especially for the new position? Are they healthy and fit enough to carry on new challenges?

Concerning the employees returning to work after recovering from an injury or illness, are they fit and ready for their old job? Some companies are so impatient to get their employees from workers’ compensation or injury or illness case logs, that they hurry the process along too quickly.

How do you determine that an employee, whose supervisor reports concerns after observing a sudden and rather intense change in their behavior in their work habits, is fit for his job? Perhaps the employee appearance and demeanor even changed, how do you determine that he is healthy?

High- risk environments

If the job available has details that include taking risks with significant and dangerous hazards, such as oil and gas extraction and processing, construction, trucking and other modes of transportation, high noise work sites, electrical generation and power transmission and exposure to toxic substances. Then the company should ask this question “how do I know that my workers are fit for duty?”

The cost factor

Over a billion dollars is spent each week on the most incapacitating injuries in the U.S. The National Safety Council estimates that the lost time associated with the average injury cost translates into nearly $30,000. Most companies want to keep their employees out of harm’s way, because of the cost factor, and, mainly because it would benefit the company in the long run.

The value of testing & exams

Pre-placement Medical exams are important because they ensure that an employer hires the right people for the right post. The phrase “pre-placement” is necessary. It is illegal to give candidates medical exams until they have been hired for various selected positions. Pre-placement exams have also been made compulsory for some kind of jobs and experiences by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Apart from the new employees,  medical investigation (exams and tests)reduces risk factors for

1. The older employees are moving to a new position which might be more dangerous than their former ones, or the new task needs different physical capabilities.
2.  Injured employees are returning back to work.
3. Employees who have the supervisors looking out for them due to their behavioral, physical, mental changes.

Challenges & Solutions

Keeping workers out of harm's way is very complicated and challenging. Health administration's demands must be met, such as the OSHA’s compulsory tests and the department of transportation (DOT) exams and tests must be carried out. Tipacally legal issues can exist with laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, state workers’ compensation laws, and drug and alcohol testing.

Additional pre-placement screening considerations includes the logistics (responsible for the exams), the record keeping (tracking tested and assessed employees), documentation (for agreement and liability protection), regulating the costs of medical surveillance, and selecting surveillance providers (objective, trustworthy, credible and easily accessible)

Although, the aim with pre-placement screening is consistency, some people believe the resources to handle this problem is another issue. However, the overall cost for implementing the Fit for Duty exams in your company will out way the injury claims and medical rehab cost to get the employee back to work.

Contact us today, to start eliminating and reducing these injury claims cost from your enterprise's business.