HR tip: Pre-employment medicals

HRD & Payroll Solutions continues to bring HR Zone members a range of HR and payroll tips in 2007. A market leader in the provision of HR and Payroll training and nationally recognised professional qualifications, HRD & Payroll Solutions are highly experienced in teaching about common HR and payroll problems. A wide selection of tips, tricks and guidance can be seen below. HR Zone highly recommends that any tips are taken as a starting point for guidance only.

Question:
"We give all new employees a medical before confirming their employment, but have heard that this is unsafe. Is there a problem?"

HR tip:
This suggests that, were employees found to be unfit, they would be rejected for work, and thus you might unlawfully discriminate against disabled people. I suggest, therefore, that you adopt either one of two practices.

The first is to make clear to the employees and to the people carrying out the examination that the purpose is to identify any medical problems, so that you can find the most effective way of overcoming them, for example by adjusting the work environment or by finding more suitable or safer employment.

The alternative is to examine candidates only for jobs for which certain ailments would make them unsuitable or for which there are specified health requirements.

Previous HR and Payroll tips:

January 2008
Monitoring bullying
Controlling absence

2007 tips

2006 tips

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