Nowadays, pre-employment assessments are commonplace in the workplace. Evaluations help employers determine how a potential employee will handle the physical demands of his or her job safely. When conducted well, assessments can improve employee safety, and productivity and help to lessen workers’ compensation costs.
When assessing candidates for employment, it is important to consider each job task’s specific demands as well as the entire work environment. It is not always possible to make one-size-fits-all decisions, so assessments should be conducted to determine an individual’s occupational capacity and match it to the available tasks to identify any potential injury risks.
As an important part of the risk management process, pre-employment assessments help to identify whether someone is going to be a good fit for your business. While injuries and reduced productivity are expensive, your employees can also affect the way you operate your business.
What does a pre-employment assessment include?
The components of a thorough pre-employment assessment include a medical history, physical examination, practice-based tests, and job-specific functional capacity assessments.
Examining medical questionnaires
Medical questionnaires ask only about your physical condition and your medical history to assess whether you are healthy enough to perform the tasks required by a job. If you don’t complete these questionnaires or disclose the answers in your application, you may be disqualified from consideration for the position.
There are a number of questions concerning a candidate’s occupational and medical background, including chemical exposure, toxic substances, and workplace injuries. There will be different questions based on an organization’s work environment and job scope, but all questions must comply with legal and regulatory requirements.
Measuring physiological parameters
Employers use general medical exams to get an overview of a candidate’s health status and to identify disease or risk factors early on. A variety of employment screening testing tools are used to measure blood pressure, heart rate, body weight, height, and body mass index (BMI).
Analyses of functional effectiveness
A functional assessment evaluates a candidate’s strength, flexibility, and endurance in order to determine their ability to fulfill the physical demands of a job role.
- Flexibility of the muscles and skeletal system
A person’s range of motion is the amount of movement and bending that they can perform at their job. Candidates are required to bend and straighten their knees, shoulders, and hips while a physiologist monitors their range of motion during a pre-employment test.
- Anatomical Joint Integrity
Joint integrity is largely determined by the condition of our joints. They can be damaged by infections and trauma and lead to restricted mobility and reduced functional capacity.
3.Strength and Balance
It is important for interviewees to demonstrate their strength and balance when being considered for employment. Candidates may be required to forcefully push against resistance or to lift their arms against downward pressure during a typical strength test.
- Flexibility of the back and abdominal endurance
Flexibility exercises for the back and exercises to improve abdominal endurance can help prevent spinal cord injuries. The ability to assume an ergonomically correct posture when performing tasks is important to the examiners assessing your potential for employment.
- Postural Tolerances
Postural tolerance assessments measure your tolerance to maintain certain postures while the job is performed. These postures can include standing, sitting, and neck positions. If a candidate cannot hold all or some of the postures, they may be unable to perform the job safely.
- Lifting
Handgrip strength is an important physical attribute for those who lift or carry loads. When you apply for a job that involves manual lifting, you may be given a handgrip test. The hand grip strength test is used to measure how much weight you may safely lift at different heights (floor, waist, and shoulder).
- Push/Pull tolerances
The assessment takes into account the load weight and the distance and frequency of the tasks. Employees should be able to initiate and keep the load in motion without exposing themselves to the risk of injury.
When it comes to getting a new employee up to speed, some pre-employment assessments can significantly reduce the time and expenses. But most importantly, they ensure employee safety by helping to select job candidates who are best suited to their work activities without undue risk of injury to themselves or others.
PCP Works provides accurate pre-employment assessments for a range of industries. Their suitably qualified assessors can administer all components of pre-employment assessments, including all baseline evaluations for biomechanical requirements.