Does your workplace currently undertake a pre-employment medical examination program? This post will discuss what you should consider before rolling out a pre-employment medical program for your business.

Pre-employment medicals can assist businesses and new applicants with ensuring that the job does not cause or aggravate any existing disease or injury, and that the characteristics of any disease or disability will not cause harm to others, including fellow employees and members of the public, through inappropriate actions by the employee. Pre-employment medicals can be applicable to all business settings, however can play a vital role in manual labour settings where a person’s ability to perform the role safely is reliant on 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. This pre-employment medical examination checklist will offer a thorough, systematic approach to ensure your candidates are properly matched to the proposed position, greatly assisting with retention in your workforce.

Things to consider before implementing a pre-employment medical examination:

Informed consent

It’s very important to obtain consent before commencing an examination. This can be obtained either by electronic form or paper form.

Medical questionnaire/health declaration

This includes a wide range of questions including vaccinations, medical history, physical and mental conditions and medications.

Medical screening

This typically includes things like a blood pressure test and skin screening, depending on the specific work requirements and environment of the industry

Clinical assessment of musculoskeletal conditions

It’s important to assess the candidate’s neck, shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, hands, mid/lower back, hips, legs, knees and ankles for any conditions that may impact their ability to perform the role they’re applying for.

Functional assessment

This involves testing the candidate’s ability to complete certain compound movements, their balance, and ability to perform postures like squatting and kneeling. This aspect of the assessment is useful in identifying any impairments that could affect their ability to complete certain tasks required by the role.

Fitness testing

Assessing the candidate’s upper body strength, grip strength, trunk strength and lifting capacity will give an indication of whether the candidate is physically capable of the role.

Manual handling assessment

This involves adequately testing the candidate’s manual handling ability and ensuring that they meet the requirements for the proposed position.

Eyesight examination

This may be particularly important for roles requiring the worker to read large amounts, or those that involve dealing with small objects. Having good eyesight can also be important for recognising certain workplace hazards, so it’s important that workers with reduced vision can be referred to a specialist for further examination when any concerns are identified.

Drug & alcohol testing

Urine or saliva testing may be conducted, depending on the standards and requirements of your industry.

Audiometry

A pre-employment screen is a great time to collect a baseline audiometry assessment for new workers, so any hearing loss over time can be identified during follow-up assessments. For many industries, an audiometry assessment is required within the first three months of employment, with additional assessments at least every two years.

Spirometry

Similar to audiometry, your industry may have initial and follow-up spirometry testing requirements, to identify any decline in a worker’s lung function over time. This is also a common inclusion in a pre-employment screen.

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; it’s important to be fully aware of those that apply to your industry and location. These include:

  • Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth)

  • State-based Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitations Acts

  • Work Health and Safety Act, regulations and codes of practice

  • Age discrimination acts

  • State-based Industrial Relations Acts

  • Fair Work Act 2009 (Commonwealth)

Top 3 Tips for a good pre-employment medical program 

  1. Ensure that physical demands of the job have been assessed. All roles that a candidate is undergoing a pre-employment medical test for should have an accurate job dictionary/task analysis completed. 

  2. 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. 

  3. Ensure you are only testing the items that are a genuine role requirement.

This post introduced the key elements to include in a successful pre-employment screening checklist, to help your workplace effectively identify suitable candidates. It’s important to remember that a pre-employment medical is just one component of a recruitment process. Pre-employment medical tests should not be pass or fail; it’s about finding the best candidate for an available position, identifying any risks, and maximising the safety, retention and overall effectiveness of your workforce.  

If you would like more information about Employ Health’s pre-employment medical programs or would like to customise a program specific to your business, please contact us at 1300 367 519.  

Start your journey to Proactive Workplace Health

Call 1300 367 519
Get started

Read the latest articles

Can’t find what you’re after?

View all articles

Links to relevant legislation