Work Restrictions

LindaS

One area of out plant does finishing work - plating and powdercoating. In the past we have used people from other departments as required to do work in these areas but I am now getting increasing numbers of people who are coming in with work restrictions preventing them from going into either of these areas. What can/should I do?

It is one thing to have just one person restricted but when you have 4-5 out of possible 10-12 that may have to work in that area, it becomes an issue. In addition, we cannot add staff specifically to that area as we do not run that department on a full time basis.

ACU Frank

Unless it's a big enough deal to make finishing work an essential function of other departments' jobs (a bigger stick), you may need to approach it with incentive pay (a bigger carrot).

It sounds like it's an undesirable duty... so undesirable, that employees routinely visit their doctors to get a note excusing them. Maybe you will just have to find that "sweet spot"... an extra dollar or two an hour, perhaps?

Maybe your next hire (or two) could be a floater, who is explicitly assigned to work whichever side of the business needs the help on a specific day.

Making someone work a job that is not :"theirs", especially when it is such an undesirable job, is asking for trouble. You are much better off finding a way to make them "volunteer" or writing it into a job description that's given to candidates up front.

davids

I had the same thought as Frank. If a substantial number of employees are looking for ways to avoid performing those tasks, they must be very unfavorable tasks. You need to find an incentive for employees to perform those tasks. Money usually does the trick; so you should consider some type of differential/premium pay for the hours spent engaged in those tasks. If you are unionized, you will have to negotiate a differential. And, the danger is the union will want premium pay for other unfavorable tasks. It would be interesting to see if any of the restricted employees are suddenly cured when the tasks pay more.