Pre Placement Assessments

LisaMN

We've been working on reducing our "Days to Hire" metric. Unfortunately I have reached a road block. Currently about 38% of our job offers get stuck in our preplacement process (for an avg of 5 calendar days), waiting for physician recommendations, PT/OT screens etc. This portion of our process is handled by a business unit of our medical center. I'm curious if this is an issue for other organizations.

Regards,
Lisa

Don D

I'm not sure what OT screens are or why they delay the process. What industry is yours? I'm in manufacturing and our drag-time is usually no more than 2 days at most with drug screens. 90% of the time it's one day. If YOUR medical unit is delaying the process, that needs attention. Why would 'medical recommendations' and routing test results drag the process out by 5 days. If the opening was in that section, would they drag it out that long? I do know that the more checks you run, the more screens you require and the more oversight bodies your industry has all has a direct correlation with the amount of time between job offer and start date. But, your in-house processes should not be the obstacle.

LisaMN

Thanks for your reply Don.

We are a medical center. An OT screen is a screen performed by an Occupational Therapist. I would completely agree that the road blocks should not be internal. And that is the dilemna, our medical center provides a large portion of the work done by this business unit. If we remove ourselves as a client I don't know that the unit will continue to be viable.

Any other thought on this subject are welcome.....

Don D

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 11-22-02 AT 02:58PM (CST)[/font][p]It would seem that their dependence on you for their viability gives you a measure of leverage. Maybe they should learn about the reality of this. Simply knowing that others have your problem will not, as you know, change anything at all. Knowing that others have the problem, validating it's root cause is, and massaging the root cause, will.

RoseF

Pre Placement Assessments are also called Post Hire or Post Offer Assessments. They are done by Occupational or Physical Therapists to determine if a person hired for a job can safely and efficiently handle all the physical requirements of that job. It is done after a person is hired but BEFORE the new hire goes to work. If the new hire cannot pass the Essential Job Functions portion of this assessment they can be terminated before they report to work. This is done to prevent on-the-job injuries. Post Offer Assessments also help employers comply with ADA hiring requirements. No longer can someone be denied employemnt on subjective findings ("she can't possible handle a man's job", or "he had surgery a coupla years ago, he can't handle this work", or "the x-ray shows something"). We now know that many times women CAN perform the essential physical functions of a job as well as a male applicant. We know that prior medical history may not mean compromised physical ability and x-rays are not reliable determinants of physical activity.

Post Offer Assessments,can are usually are, done the same day an applicant is hired, leaves their company's HR, goes to the Doc for the drug and physical. Here in Louisiana, the company I work for is contracted by many Offshore Drilling companies, municipal services (Police, Fire, Utilities) and other business fields (medical, manufacturing, processing, trucking, etc.) to do their Post Offer tests. We realize often the company has to get a person hired, tested and on the jobsite on the same day.

pecohr

Lisa,
I have had a similar experience and discovered that the medical center contracted their MRO doctors only a couple a days a week. So we ended up waiting until they were available to process our screens. I resolved this issue by shopping around (may not be an option for you) and finding a new medical center a little more focused on the customers (us) needs.

Hope this helps,
Stuart

RoseF

We are an Occupational Therapy clinic in Louisiana specializing in Pre-Placement Assessments (we call them Post-Hire Assessments). We also do Return to Work Rehab and Functional Capacity Assessments for injured workers and Injury Prevention and Ergonomic programs to keep the workforce uninjured. The companies we service have scaled down the hire-test-get on the job process to 1-2 days. We have networked with a couple of Occupational Med. Docs to do the drug tests and physical exams the same day the company finishes their hiring paperwork, if the new employee passes the drug test and medical test they come directly to our facility for the Post Offer Test of job specific physical demands. We have developed very specific tests for each specific job for each different company we work with. Our tests last from 1 1/2 to 4 hours, depending on what job the person is hired for and what company. (A roustabout for a land rig has a very different job, hence very different physical demand, than a deckhand on a crew boat). Many days we can help a company get a new employee on the jobsite the same day they hire them. That is important here, as many of the employers are in the Offshore drilling industry and new hires need to catch the next crew boat or helicopter out. When there is a delay, it may be that the new employee took the long way going from the Doctor's office to our testing facility (about 5 minutes away). Even when our tests uncover some medical discrepency or potential problem, we are able to discuss the issue with the Doc and the hiring company to see if accommodations can be made or something needs to be taken care of before the employee reports to the worksite.

Since we are contracted to help the companies with their hiring process, it is of utmost importance that we do all we can to expedite the process, and we do, even to staying long after hours to finish a test and get a new hire on the road.