Firstly, there’s something very important you need to know. A good pre-employment medical test is not pass or fail. If you are a business that advises candidates that they’ve failed a pre-employment – STOP NOW! In this post, we talk about why you would conduct a pre-employment medical program, the benefits, and provide tips on how to ensure your program can deliver results without being used exclusively as a reason to fail a candidate’s application.
Why conduct a pre-employment medical?
A pre-employment medical test program can serve a number of functions. One of the key objectives is an injury prevention tool, helping employers meet their duty of care to their employees. A well conducted pre-employment medical test can help to reduce injury risk by ensuring that the candidate is placed in a role that matches their physical capabilities.
An effective pre-employment medical program can also assist in retention, which is of vital importance with the current labour shortages across many industries. When Employ Health implemented an updated pre-employment medical program with a meat industry business in 2018, turnover during the probation period reduced by 25%. Using pre-employment medicals to fit a candidate with a role that is matched with their physical capabilities means they are far more likely to stay in the role. Also, instead of treating their pre-employment medical result as a ‘fail’, candidates that don’t quite meet the requirements for a particular role could be enrolled in a ‘work hardening’ program, to help them improve their strength and become fit for work.
As another benefit, pre-employment medicals can also incorporate components that are required for health surveillance, such as audiometry and spirometry assessments.
What is typically tested in a pre-employment medical?
Depending on the needs of the industry or organisation, a pre-employment medical may feature the following components:
- Informed consent
- Medical questionnaire
- Health declarations
- Medication screening/medical tests (e.g. blood pressure)
- Clinical assessment/musculoskeletal screen
- Functional assessment
- Fitness testing
- Material handling tests
- Psychometric testing
- Drug and alcohol screening
- Screening audiometry
- Spirometry assessment
What are some of the legal considerations for a pre-employment medical?
There are a number of relevant pieces of both federal and state based legislation that should be considered when designing a pre-employment medical program. These include:
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Fair Work Act 2009 (Commonwealth)
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State based Industrial Relations Acts (e.g. QLD - Industrial Relations Act 2016)
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Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Commonwealth) and state-based acts (e.g. Anti Discrimination Act 1991 in QLD/NSW)
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Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth)
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State-based Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitations Acts
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Work Health and Safety Act, regulations and codes of practice
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Age discrimination acts
What about discrimination?
There is state and federal legislation that prevents discrimination in the pre-employment medical process. However, there are some circumstances where it will be important to make decisions that ensure the health and safety of a prospective employee. Some examples of this include:
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Where a disability prevents a person from carrying out the inherent requirements of the particular employment or in order to carry out those requirements, facilities would need to be provided which would impose an unjustifiable hardship on the organisation.
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Specifically for QLD – the circumstances of a worker’s impairment are such that they would impose unjustifiable hardship on the employer.
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The discriminating act is done to protect the health and safety of people at work.
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The discriminating act is done because of a genuine occupational requirement for a position.
It is unlawful to request information about personal characteristics that are irrelevant to the job, such as marital status, sexuality and race. Doing so may be non-compliant with various discrimination acts.
Can an employer request a candidate’s medical history?
The employer may request a prospective worker to disclose all pre-existing injuries or medical conditions existing during the period of the employment process that could reasonably be expected to be aggravated by performing their role. It is important, though, for the employer to provide accurate information about the requirements of a particular role, which will allow the candidate to make an informed decision about what it is relevant to disclose in the medical questionnaire.
Top 3 tips for a good pre-employment medical program:
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Ensure you have assessed the physical demands of the job. All roles that a candidate is undergoing a pre-employment medical test for should have an accurate job dictionary/task analysis completed.
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Ensure your pre-employment medical assesses the candidate’s ability to perform these inherent requirements as per the job dictionary. If it is a very physically demanding role, ensure you have a pre-employment medical that tests accurately for this, as it may significantly reduce injury risk in the future.
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Ensure you are only testing the items that are a genuine role requirement.