Pre-Employment Physical

amyhedlu

I am new to the forum but have found such great information already. So now that we are going to start performing pre-employment testing I thought that the forum was the best place to come with questions. I work for a manufacturing company and we are in need of metal finishers, so I am going to start advertising for these positions. Because of the physical aspect of this job we have decided to start physical testing to make sure the prospective employees are able to physically handle the job. Do I inform the applicants at the time of interview that a pre-employment physical test must be passed before they are hired? Any help from the experts out there would be helpful!

Cindy Hanna

I state it with the employment ad and I also tell them in the interview.

Don D

Yes, I recommend you tell them up front. But, be sure the physician who does your pre-employment physicals is the one who qualifies or disqualifies the individual. This will require that you fully educate the clinic's physicians on the physical demands of your job. A tour by them is best, but, written job requirements will do if they won't do the tour. Ideally, a licensed physical therapist would view the job and write the physical demands and you give that sheet to the physician's. Then they do certain push-pull, lifting, bending, stooping or other pieces in the physical that indicate whether he can do the task. The physician then will either clear or not clear the person and you have that in writing from the clinic. This keeps you out of the medical business. I have always tried to insist on at least annual plant tours by any physicians doing our pre-emp or our comp cases.

ssims

Be sure that you don't do the physical before you have made a job offer. It is actually a post-offer physical. You can do drug screens for applicants but not physicals. Also, just because the physican does not pass the employee on his physical you need to proceed with caution. We did this a couple of years ago and the young woman went to the State Human Rights Commission and the EEOC and filed a cliam that we "perceived her to have a disability". We ended up settling with her, after paying attorneys to fight it. So, even though we do post-offer physicals, we tread very carefully now before not hiring someone because the physican failed the person on their physical. Good Luck