Requiring a medical

[AlexT]

Hi, one of my clients has a factory employee nearing retirement who is currently using equipment and can't see very well. What are their options? Can they suggest to him that they are worried about his safety and see if he will have his eyes re-tested? Can they request he move to less dangerous duties? Any suggestions would be very helpful.

[HRIMHO]

I'd recommend sending him to an occupational physician or the like and getting a formal specialist medical opinion about the risks. In doing so, being sure to inform the occupational physician or the like about the job, it's responsibilities and inherent risks.

Once this medical advice comes back, then I think you will have enough evidence to make a call on the situation and potentially move the worker to alterative, safer duties however not eroding his conditions of employment.

[Job Media]

Hi, one of my clients has a factory employee nearing retirement who is currently using equipment and can't see very well.

This might be stating the obvious, but your client needs to act very quickly on this, particularly given that they are aware and worried about this person's safety.

Have they done anything yet?

[AlexT]

Thanks for the advice HRIMO - much appreciated. I had several people advise with conflicting information. An Occupational Physician company said we should conduct a medical which would not provide the employee with any information but would give the company all the information and that they could ask him to leave based on the results. I didn't think that was good advice. You can't end an employment contract in this manner in my experience. Worksafe said we needed evidence (whether through incident reports or other means) that he was in fact unsafe/unfit for his duties. They couldn't advise what we should do once we had deemed him unfit. They said it was a matter of Industrial Relations then. I have advised the client to outline their concerns to the employee in question and get his feedback on it and ask if he would mind having a medical. They would then need to transfer him to lighter/safer duties if the medical revealed that he wasn't really fit for the work he was doing.