Veteran Hire

leadvisor

We hire detention personnel. Persons appointed must be free of any emotional or mental condition that might adversely affect his/her performance. We have a candidate whose psyche eval indicates: untreated depression, social isolation and low self esteem. He has done two combat tours in Iraq. The evaluator says his issues are very treatable and recommends counseling and medication. We have a vetern preference statute in our state. Can we condition employment on the counseling and medication check? Hire him on a probation basis, put him in our training program and require counseling? He is also the son of one of our retired peace officers. This feels like a really sticky situation.

ACU Frank

I don't have any real experience in that area, but I applaud you for taking extra steps to see if it could work out. It would be very easy to take the safe route and dismiss his application, but you've chosen to follow your moral compass in as prudent a manner as possible, and that's as honorable an action as we can take in this profession.

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Still Need Coffee

Well said, Frank.

As long as you don't have any standing agreements governing terms of conditional employment (union contracts, CBAs, etc), it is fine to make employment conditional on attaining certain objectives as long as those objectives (completing counseling, medication, etc) are directly job related.

It sounds like you have a very legitimate reason for requesting these things, just remember that it is ultimately up to the employee. Give him the choice - "we'd like to hire you but you need to do XYZ to qualify."

bkailiuli

I applaud you also. Maybe this is the avenue where he can receive the helps he needs. We need to help our veterans when we can.

Beth