New Hires

sharonm

I have a question that I would like someone to answer. I work in the HR division for a very large company in SC. Currently, we conduct interviews for vacant positions, and make job offers giving a report date. When the newly hired employee reports for the first day of work, they begin the grueling week of orientation. Benefits begin the day of employment. The first day of work includes Completing lots of forms including benefits, personal information, etc. They also listen to presentations on EEO, Ethics, and Company Policy from "the experts". This first day lasts 8 hrs. approx. The second day is the physical conducted by the company's medical department and company doctors. This also includes blook work and drug tests. The 3rd day is a federally required all-day class-room training. We had two new hires who went thru this 3 day process, only to have the company officials discover after medical results came back (end of 3rd day)that they cannot perform their positions due to medical problems. Therefore, the company terminated them on the 4th report day.

My ???: to avoid employees from going thru 3 full days of orientation stuff, only to get terminated, shouldn't we be doing physicals before the report date? What do other companies do about this? Thanks for your advice.

Down_the_Middle

We address this problem by requiring the pre-employment physical exam to be done prior to new employee orientation. It doesn't always work like that , but certainly the majority of times.

DB

We make a conditional offer of employment in writing to the candidate. They must accept in writing within 5 days. With this signed conditional offer and a release authorization then then begin the complete background investigation (depending on the position this could include a physical, drug screen, education, past employers, driver's license, worker's comp, psychological, criminal and credit). The candidate is not given an offical start date until all of the results are back. Their orientation begins that day. Candidates decide when to give their two weeks notice but I make sure they understand that the initial offer is conditional, not final. I work for a city government in IL.

bsa

I used to work for a small company that made provisional job offers, pending the results of a medical exam by an independent medical provider. Orientation, forms completion, etc. occurred after this exam.

System

Gotta be careful with this. I beleive that legally, you can only ask a prospective new hire to undergo a company physical/drug test AFTER you have officially offered them employment. If the tests reveal that the new hire is not fit for the position you can then rescind your offer of employment. Encourage the new hire to not quit their current job until the results of the physical/drug test are in so they won't be completely out of work if it doesn't work out with you.

So offer employment, do the tests, then proceed to orientation. That way all you're out is the cost of the tests. If they fail the tests, they don't even have to be added to your payroll and were never a formal employee of your company.

Tony Kessler

Sharon,
We checked with Reggie Belcher, editor of South Carolina Employment Law Letter, who confirmed that you may certainly conduct a post-job offer physical exam before engaging in other orientation activities. Reggie is with the McNair Law Firm, P.A., in Columbia. Hope this helps.