Matheson Philosophy on Workplace Safety and Work Injury Evaluation

The announcement today of the jury verdict in the case of EEOC v Henry’s Turkey Service, dba Hill Country Farm, may serve as a tipping point in the consciousness of employers who may have been ignoring the amended ADA.

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Reasonable accommodation requests under Title I of the ADAAA trigger a major portion of FY 2012 EEOC charge receipts. The high visibility of this issue demands extra care be taken when receiving, considering, and resolving accommodation requests.

When considering denial of a request for accommodation, best practice is to document the potentially adverse employment decision within the frame work of the EEOC’s mantra of “Stop. Think. Justify.” An evidence-based approach to justification at the “Think” step of the mantra is use of the ANSI Z-365 Proactive Job Survey tool.

The Z-365 is a particularly effective tool in the hands of a trained ergonomic evaluator who takes a “body segment” approach to quantifying risk associated with the repetitions, motions, and forces involved in an essential or marginal function job task before aggregating overall exposure.

In plain English, using the Z-365 the evaluator looks at the stressors of work as they separately affect areas of the body. One such area, the upper extremities are comprised of the shoulder, forearm/elbow, wrist, and, finally, the hand. Observation of stressors at each individual “segment” allows the trained evaluator to rank the likelihood of risk to each part of the body.

My research assistants and I are preparing for Thursday’s "2012 Year in Review" webinar. Here is yet another set of stats that highlight the need for work evaluators and employers to work closely together.

My staff and I are preparing for our February 7th webinar in which we will look at last year’s ADA legal activity. Our focus will be on the new cases that shape best practice for those offering functional capacity evaluation, post-offer testing, or employment physicals.

In your practice are you working with patients who are substantially limited in one or more major life activities? Then you are dealing with Qualified Individuals. Do you perform functional capacity evaluations for individuals returning to work after an absence? Do you perform post-offer employment tests for individuals who have been given an offer of employment? Then you are performing medical examinations. Are you unsure how the ADAAA affects you and your business? Do you want guidance on how to follow the law?

A very valid point was recently raised by a physician who emailed me about the lack of consistency between evaluation systems and evaluators. There are several points that I discussed in response.

The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA) has changed the world of employment testing forever. Virtually all job-attached return-to-work decisions must now be filtered through the prism of the ADAAA. (“Job-attached” means that the patient-worker-transferee has first right of refusal to the target job.)

"The most disabling workplace injuries and illnesses in 2009 amounted to $50.1 billion in direct U.S. workers compensation costs. After adjusting for inflation, this year’s costs decreased 6.5 percent from 2008." (2011 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index) That's a big chunk of change coming out of American business owner's pockets and 25.4% of that cost is a result of "overexertion" injuries, which is described by Liberty Mutual as "injuries from excessive lifting, pushing, pulling, holding, carrying, throwing". As ergonomic evaluators, you know that more often than not this type of injury is preventable... but how do you convince the business owner who you believe can benefit from your services and ergonomic expertise? 

One of the basic assumptions of Matheson's "Return-to-Work Programs" training course is that a "patient" does not become a "worker" unless and until he/she makes a cognitive shift in his/her thinking, belief systems and everyday behavior. The greatest challenge for a successful, high-utility industrial rehabilitation practice is creating and maintaining an environment within which injured workers who have "fallen" into the patient role can regain the worker role and return to work.