An Industrial Therapist functions as a key member of an Employer’s team in a number of ways. While your primary functions are to keep employees safe and healthy, reduce risk of injury, and help employees recover from injuries when they do occur, by doing so you actually perform vital legal and financial functions for the company as well.

Your contact with employees, and the company as a whole, often starts with prior-to-hire assessments, or ePAS (Employee Physical Aptitude Screens). You can think of ePAS as a “lie detector for the body”; it tells you (and the employer) whether an applicant is physically capable of performing a particular job. The immediate benefits of such testing are obvious, but over time prior-to-hire screenings impact the Employer’s bottom line in major ways.

Without ePAS, employers are exposed to the following risks:

• Overexertion injuries becoming OSHA recordables
• Aging workforce hiring discrimination issues
• Obesity hiring discrimination issues
• Limited capabilities and increased discomfort and symptoms of workers
• Propensity for injury
• Propensity for illness
• Absenteeism (employees regularly missing work)
• Presenteeism (employees are present, but not fully functioning)
• Application fraud
• Unhappy workers who are also fearful of losing their jobs

In fact, American businesses lose over a billion dollars each week due to the above risks!

With ePAS, employers are protected, and losses limited, by the following benefits:

• Screenings are based upon work assessment physical capability requirements
• Assessments are legally defensible
• Ability to increase new hire capabilities as a part of on-boarding
• Reduced rate of injuries ~ reduced Workers’ Comp ~ decreased MOD rates
• Reduced OSHA recordables with education upon symptom detection
• Fewer lost work days
• Improved health, safety and comfort of employees
• Reduced application fraud
• Compliance with ADA and EEO laws
• Restored quality of employees’ productivity

Workplace safety begins with prior-to-hire screenings, and so does your immense personal and financial value to Employers. Over time, you (their Industrial Therapist) become an indispensable member of the team. For more information on transitioning your career to a focus on Industrial Therapy and Industrial Health, contact us to learn about the KEY Method.