You may believe (and even know) that you’ve found an applicant that seems right for a particular job, but pre-employment testing allows you to know for sure how that employee will perform in certain situations and under pressure. Ultimately, this can save you time and money in the long run, because you can discover an employee’s strengths and weaknesses in the workplace without putting him/her on the job immediately. Pre-employment testing gives you the assurance that you need before bringing on a new employee.
1. PRE-EMPLOYMENT POST-OFFER TESTING
Pre-Employment Post-Offer Testing represents the core of the WorkSTEPS program, and is administered to determine whether or not a job candidate can safely perform the essential functions of the position he or she has been offered. This test is administered after an official offer of employment has been made, but before the candidate officially begins work in the capacity of his or her new position. The Comprehensive Pre-Employment Post-Offer test includes the following components:
Medical history review with a clinician
A series of comprehensive medical measurements
Strength measures
Dynamic lifting & progressive lifting sequence
Cardiovascular measures
Essential job functions testing demonstrating the capability to safely perform the essential functions of his or her job.
The information gathered through the post offer employment testing will document and quantify pre-existing conditions and cumulative traumas, and is invaluable when used as a baseline for comparison should there ever be an injury and/or rehabilitation necessary.
2. FIT FOR DUTY EVALUATION
A Fit-for-Duty evaluation is administered to a current employee post-injury through an injury management program. A Fit-for-Duty Evaluation is a functional capacity test that focuses only on the injured part of the body used in a job specific task, rather than a comprehensive exam. In compliance with EEOC mandates, a medical examination of a current employee may be given only when it is “job related and consistent with business necessity”.
3. FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY EVALUATION (FCE)
The FCE is a full body comprehensive medical test used to measure an employee’s functional capacity and assist in injury management, whether the injury was sustained while at work or existed previously. The FCE test may be used alone to document existing impairments or may be used in combination with the Post-Offer Comprehensive test as a comparison against original, baseline data.
One FCE should be given at the time of injury to determine severity and legitimacy for optimum injury management. Another FCE should be administered during rehabilitation to determine progress, and one functional capacity evaluation should be conducted post-rehabilitation to determine the employee’s ability to return to his or her job.
At the time of injury, when compared against data previously collected, the FCE may be used to prove consistency and validity of performance and create realistic, objective rehabilitation goals, return to work recommendations, or work conditioning programs to capitalize on injury management procedures. This information is invaluable to objectively move the patient through the system in a fair and timely manner.
What is WorkSTEPS?
WorkSTEPS, Inc. is the nation’s leading provider of functional employment testing. Our tests are medically-safe, legally compliant, scientific and objective, and specifically-designed to match a worker’s functional capabilities with the essential functions of the job. Our trained, licensed, certified and managed national network of healthcare clinicians administers WorkSTEPS’ proprietary employment testing at locations across North America. Standardized programming, training, exceptionally talented staff and state of the art technology systems make our program the best in the nation!
WorkSTEPS is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Our standardized, functional testing program is utilized by thousands of national and regional employers throughout the country. The WorkSTEPS program has become a critical part of an organized and systematic business model that is automated, validated, measurable, and offers a predictable return on investment. Companies that begin using WorkSTEPS experience significant and immediate results – typically a 40-to-50 percent reduction in Workers’ Compensation claims and related costs over the previous year, with continued reductions thereafter.
Employers that begin utilizing the WorkSTEPS program experience the following benefits:
Decreased turnover
Increased worker productivity
Safer work environment
Reductions in lost time
Diminished incidence of fraud and abuse
Reduced modifier rates and Workers’ Compensation premium
Reduction in Group Health costs
WorkSTEPS’ content-valid functional employment testing includes pre-employment post-offer testing, post-employment fit-for-duty testing, upper quadrant/carpal tunnel testing, return-to-work fit-for-duty, and functional capacity evaluations (FCE) post-injury. We have performed millions of functional employment tests since the company was fully-incorporated in 1994.