In 1996, American Airlines claims to have saved $2 million in costs related to on-the-job injuries. The airline also reported an injury rate of less than one per 100 employees, down from 14 per 100 the year before.
How did this giant employer reduce costs and injuries? By putting job applicants through physical testing before hiring them as baggage handlers.
It’s the latest weapon in the battle against lost-time injuries and workers’ comp costs, and you don’t need to own one of the largest airlines in the free world to use it.
While the idea is simplicity itself, the technique is only starting to become common practice-primarily because of technology. Until recently, it’s been impossible to test a person’s physical ability to do a job without exposing the person to the actual stresses of the work-thus risking liability before you’ve even hired the person.
But that’s changing, in part through the work of Cleveland-based NaviSource, a year-old risk-management firm.
In a recent visit, Dr. Tom Gilliam, NaviSource director of physical assessment technology, strapped one of our writers into the company’s patented Physical Assessment Technology system, which is designed to test an individual’s physical capabilities without risk of injury or strain.
“With new hires, this significantly reduces soft-tissue injuries. As a result, associated costs such as medical and loss of productivity are reduced as well,” Gilliam says.
The process, he maintains, is similar to evaluating the word processing skills of a prospective clerk or mathematical skills of a bookkeeper. The only difference is that the P.A.T. system measures physical aptitude. “If you want to hire someone to load an aircraft, you want to make sure they’re physically able to do the work,” Gilliam says.
While pre-employment physical testing procedures may differ from one test to another, they all average about $100 per prospective employee. Results are typically returned to employers within 24 hours, complete with a U.S. Department of Labor physical activities level rating. That rating is accepted under the American With Disabilities Act, meaning that a failed physical assessment is a legal ground to reject an individual’s job application.
Gilliam is quick to point out that pre-employment physical testing can’t completely eliminate the risk of injury; the only way to do that is eliminate physical activity, he says. However, by documenting the physical demands of a job and then testing prospects before making a hire, business owners can reduce the risk of injury to their workers.
My physical assessment
When Jeff Coffman, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, strapped me into a Physical Assessment Technology machine at the PT Center for Sports Medicine and Family Physical Therapy, I had two questions: Will it hurt, and will it reveal to Coffman what I already knew about my body?
“We’re going to work on your knees first, then your shoulders,” Coffman explained. After that, they would test my trunk strength-the back and midsection.
NaviSource’s P.A.T. equipment looks like the workout gear at a well-equipped gym. But it’s connected to a computer terminal and there is no visible source of weight. Tom Gilliam, director of P.A.T. for NaviSource, says the system uses isokinetic energy. Simply put, the faster and harder you push or pull, the more resistance the machine offers.
The pre-employment physical assessment test focuses on three major muscle groups to determine if a prospective worker can safely perform the essential functions of a job. It can also be used to ascertain whether an injured worker is ready to return to the job.
Coffman punched several buttons on the computer, then told me to lift my leg back and forth to let the computer calibrate to my knee’s full range of motion. At this point, there wasn’t much resistance.
For the first test, Coffman instructed me to drive my foot up and down by bending the knee. I did it five times fast, as hard as I could. There was no pain, just strain in my muscles.
“The machine accommodates strengths and weaknesses,” Gilliam says. “It’s 100 percent safe.”
The test didn’t determine that I’d hurt the knee in a bad skiing accident 10 years ago; it just revealed that the left knee was significantly weaker than the right.
The shoulder test was conducted on a flat bench connected to a rotating bar. The test consisted of lifting the bar from a prone position to just past 90 degrees, then pulling it down to the original position. In that same ski accident I’d hurt my left shoulder, and I was interested to see how much strength I’d really lost. According to the test, there wasn’t much difference between the two shoulders.
The final test was on my trunk. I was strapped at the ankles, knees and chest, in a standing position, and told to bend at the waist as fast and hard as I could.
“Explode down,” Coffman coached. “Then pull up with everything you’ve got.”
I stormed through two sets of five “explosions,” like an on-the-cusp football prospect at the pre-draft workouts. I was out of breath and light-headed from the intense but surprisingly pain-free exertion.
After 45 minutes of testing, the results were electronically entered into the computer, which was programmed to compare my results against a preset baseline.
When my results arrived at SBN headquarters, they indicated I was fit to perform heavy labor, as rated by the U.S. Department of Labor.
It seemed unfair; a recent back injury that had prevented me from even swinging a golf club hadn’t been enough to relieve me of the metaphorical heavy lifting of my white-collar desk job.
But a closer look at the definitions showed the truth: The definition of heavy labor was occasional exertion of up to 100 pounds, frequent exertion at 50 pounds, and continuous force in excess of 20 pounds.
The test, in fact, did a better job at revealing my physical limitations than the government does in describing them, and confirmed my suspicion: The only physical labor I’m really cut out for is rapping my fingers on a computer keyboard and lugging my laptop around town.
So guess what. I’ve been promoted to associate editor.
-Dustin S. Klein
How to reach: NaviSource P.A.T. (800) 249-6431
