Happy New Years (and check your job descriptions)

Hopefully everyone had a safe and Happy New Year’s. With a brand new year upon us, it’s a good time for employers to take a look at how they can make 2012 an even better year. One of the areas that deserves a look is your current job descriptions for your employees. A couple of questions to ask yourself are:

1. Do we have customized job descriptions for our employees?
2. If you have customized job descriptions, how explicit are they? Do they list the minimum essential demands that must be performed as a function of the job position?
3. Do they explicitly define the essential strength demands into how much weight the employee must be able to lift, carry, push and pull? Do they describe what heights the lifting tasks are performed at (floor, waist, shoulder, etc.)? Do they describe the frequency with which these tasks occur?
4. Do you have an explicit description of all the tasks associated with the job title that are your basis for the essential demands?

Having a good, solid customized job description provides an employer with important information that can be used to establish a post-offer pre-employment testing process, the foundation for a solid stay at work program that can provide detailed information to treating physicians in determining appropriate modified duty, and a solid basis for comparison when a Functional Capacity Evaluation is required to determine whether an injured employee can return to work.

The importance of having detailed information became even more clear several years ago when we were asked to generate a customized job description for the job of mechanics assistant within a public works department for a large municipality. The town had a custom job description for their mechanics and mechanics assistants that rated the position as an occasional 100 pound demand. As this was the only weight load listed, it allowed the injured mechanics assistant’s lawyer to argue that there really wasn’t that much “heavy” work to do and that the work could be performed by an assistant (yes, an assistant to the assistant). An onsite review revealed a significant number of essential tasks that were between 60 and 100 pounds and well in excess of the injured employee’s physical ability as determined by a functional capacity evaluation.

If you have any questions about your current job descriptions or need a customized job description for positions at your company, give Biokinetics a call at (732) 741-5085.