Fitness for work: the need for conducting a job analysis

Ensuring that employees are both physically fit for work by matching their capabilities with the physical requirements of their job, and physically fit for life by promoting health-related physical activities, are important and under-utilized tools in a company's arsenal for reducing absence and ill-health retirement (IHR). Both the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) require evidence-based approaches to setting physical and medical employment standards. Proven fitness-related strategies include redesigning the most demanding tasks, selecting and training personnel who possess the necessary physical attributes, and assessing and redeploying personnel to jobs within their capability. An essential precursor to pursuing these strategies is to conduct a job analysis to quantify the physical demands of the job.