Increased regulation, corporate risk control objectives, and employee satisfaction and retention are all factors driving employee acquisition protocols used by Human Resource
(HR) departments. When it comes to employee satisfaction and retention,
maintaining a
safe and productive work environment is a common element of HR success that begins
with determining a
prospective employee’s fitness for a particular job or role. No level of
de facto safeguard is likely to be as effective in protecting your employees’ well-being as
pro-actively ensuring their physical capabilities are in line with the physical demands of the
job.
Moreover, with zealous litigators seemingly running amuck in the US labor markets, it
is sound business practice to use the best
available candidate assessment and selection
methods.
There are several “flavors” of physical assessment available to employers when screening prospective employees. The
differences between them affect not only the effectiveness of
the screening process in protecting employers and employees, but also the usefulness of
the data each assessment produces. Let’s examine two protocols for candidate physical
testing: pre-employment testing and post-offer testing.
Pre-employment testing might also be called “traditional” physical screening. The
assessment is done after a candidate applies for a job and may be used by the employer
to narrow the field of candidates in consideration for a job offer. This is due, in part, to the
nature of the testing. Pre-employment testing is a non-medical test with
no medical
questions or history and thus does not capture any data that might be used as an illegal
hiring bias.
In contrast, post-offer testing occurs only after a candidate has been offered a job
contingent on satisfactorily passing the assessment. This type
of test can and usually does
include elements considered medical in nature including a medical history work up. While
this is a
key difference between the testing types from an HR perspective, the relative value
of these testing types comes from the quality
and utility of the testing results.
Post-offer testing provides a far richer data set than traditional pre-employment testing,
including a medical history and pre-existing condition catalog that is helpful in assessing
appropriate workers’ compensation
responsibility after an on-the-job injury. A post-offer
Physical Capacity Profile® (PCP) test measures body fat and weight, range of
motion, limb
strength, lift strength and more. Unlike a go / no-go result yielded from pre-employment
testing for a particular job,
a complete PCP determines quantitative physical limits that are
correlated with Department of Labor strength categories and is compliant with ADA, EEOC
and HIPAA.
Because the assessment data is quantitative, it can be used as a baseline for comparison
to any future post-injury assessment. Likewise, test data is benchmarked against AMA
guidelines. These test attributes are
compelling in workers’ compensation cases where a
comparison of pre and post injury impairments is the determining factor in-claim awards.
So how do these testing differences translate into realizable benefits to an employerconsidering what method to use? In some cases, post-offer testing might be more
expensive because, as a medical test, it requires medical staff to perform.
However, the cost savings an employer generally realizes from improved matching of candidates to job
requirements far exceed any testing costs. Multiple studies [1], [2] have shown drastic
reductions in job-related injuries when employees are matched to
job requirements
through PCP test results. Those reductions not only prevent workers’ compensation
claims; they increase the
number of healthy work days across an organization. Similarly,
reductions in workers’ compensation claim payouts are realized when pre-injury
impairments are catalogued before an injury occurs. This limits workers’ compensation to
covering only
impairments related to on-the-job injuries. In addition, accurate
measurement of whether an impairment was job-related is a
significant factor in
preventing experience rate modification for insurance premiums. In one study, average
annual workers’ compensation expenses were shown to decline 36% once PCP post-offer
testing was instituted as a candidate assessment
method.
Beyond monetary considerations, employers can use post-offer PCP testing to create a
safer, more effective workforcethat is matched to the jobs at hand. For more information
on how to utilize post-offer Physical Capacity Profile®
testing in your organization, contact
us at 785-825-4444 or pcpworks.com.
[1]Harbin G, Olson J, Post-Offer, Pre-Placement Testing in Industry , American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2005, 47(4):303
[2]Harbin G, et al., Shoulder injury reduction with post-offer testing , Work, 2011, 39(2):113-123
