The pre-employment medical is conducted by experienced medical practitioners and will be tailored to the employer’s requirements and can include:

• detailed occupational and medical history, multi-system examination – musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and respiratory assessments.
• urine drug screening
• audiometry – hearing tests
• spirometry – lung function tests

Following the assessment, a report describes the candidate’s suitability to perform the particular tasks of the job and whether any restrictions or limitations need to apply.

Pre-employment functional capacity assessments are undertaken to safely match candidates to the physical demands of a job and can be conducted independently or in tandem with pre-employment medicals.

The value of pre-employment functional assessments has been tested by a number of international, peer reviewed and published studies, confirming that the implementation of these assessments can reduce injury rates and deliver substantial cost savings. Specific findings from a range of studies include:

• 41% decrease in injuries was reported in the years following implementation of pre-employment assessments in a company employing 1000 warehouse workers.
• Four years after implementing pre-employment functional assessments, equal size groups of workers who had, and had not, been assessed were compared. The group that had not undergone a functional assessment had an injury incidence rate of 23% and injury costs of $2,073,000. The group of workers who had been screened with an FCE had an injury incidence rate of 1% and injury costs of $6,500. This equates to a 4-year cost saving of $2.06 million.
• Comparing two groups of workers, 503 new employees who had been screened using a FCE, and 1423 who were not screened, it was found that the non-screened group were 2.38 times more likely to experience a musculoskeletal disorder and had 4.33 times higher cost of claims.
• Workers who demonstrated functional capacity to perform their work duties had a 3% incidence of back injuries compared to a 33% incidence of back injuries for workers whose capacity did not match their job demands.
• Workers who had passed job specific functional tests had 47% lower worker compensation injury rate and 21% higher work retention.

Ensuring a candidate has the right personal attributes and skills is as important as ensuring they are physically suited to the job demands. There are very good reasons to use pre-employment psychological screening as a part of a recruitment process, working in tandem with medical and functional assessments.

Pre-employment psychological screening conducted by CHG psychologists can help you:

• Identify the most suitable person for the job
• Identify characteristics such as risk taking behaviour which are associated with greater risk of injury
• Decrease staff turnover and the wasted time and money associated with a poor recruitment outcome
• Reduce risks to the candidate and current staff – screening can establish whether the candidate may exhibit behaviours or characteristics that are not consistent with the culture of the organisation.

Pre-employment psychological screening can assess:

Intelligence: Assessments are available to indicate abilities in verbal and non-verbal tasks and can be extended to consider emotional intelligence to identify self-awareness, resilience, influence and integrity.

Personality: Many forms of assessment are available to identify traits relevant to the workplace.

Aptitude and skills: A range of assessments can be used to assess particular skills and aptitudes

Clinical measures: A range of assessments are available to screen for current symptomology arising from disorders such as depression, anxiety or personality disorders.

CHG has a wealth of experience conducting category and licensing medical examinations to a broad range of sectors including transport, mining, oil and gas industries. CHG medical practitioners have the experience, tools and ability to assess against any defined requirement set by legislation or an employer’s own standards.

These include medical assessments for:

• rail and track workers
• aviation licenses
• commercial driver’s licences
• forklift drivers, crane operators, scaffolders or rigger’s licences
• workers in the oil, gas and resources sector
• emergency response medicals – medical clearance to participate in mine site emergency response teams
• confined space medicals.