Organizations that employ physically demanding jobs want to ensure their selection procedures distinguish qualified applicants from unqualified applicants. However, such selection tools typically result in adverse impact against various protected groups and often lead to litigation. Various factors influence the court’s decision to rule in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant. The purpose of the present study is to identify those factors. The ADA (1990) created strict guidelines for plaintiffs and defendants to follow to be credible in a discrimination case. This study will specifically determine the impact of the ADA guidelines and three additional factors that influence court decisions including job analysis and test validation procedures, and whether the job involves public safety. Organizations can benefit from knowing factors they can control to decrease legal liability. Cases filed from 1992 to the present were reviewed and coded based on each factor. Z-tests for proportions were conducted to determine the proportions of rulings in favor of the plaintiff and defendant based on each factor of interest. Public safety influences the court decisions in favor of the defendant, such that for jobs in which public safety is of concern, the court is more likely to rule in favor of the defendant. Additional factors were not significantly influential. However, some trends are apparent and discussed in the paper. Implications and limitations also are discussed.

Selecting employees for hire and promotion is one of the most essential functions of an organization. Many companies that have positions which contain a physical component rely on physical ability testing as part of their selection procedure. The establishment of both the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) had a profound impact on the manner in which selection testing may legally be conducted (Gutman, Koppes, & Vodanovich, 2011). The current study sought to analyze court cases involving physical ability testing. Results revealed that pure ability tests did not significantly differ from work sample tests with regard to whether court cases found for the plaintiff or defendant. Additionally, rulings did not significantly differ in ruling in favor of the plaintiff or defendant with regard to whether the position in question involved public safety. Finally, the ADA related cases did not significantly differ in their rulings in favor of the plaintiff or defendant after the 2011 modifications to the interpretation of disabled, as compared to before 2011. Future research should focus on the difference between court rulings involving physical ability tests in comparison to other forms of testing such as cognitive tests, and further investigate the role of the ADA in physical ability testing.

Throughout the world, including South Africa, various approaches have been identified and implemented in an attempt to ensure that employees in physically-demanding positions are properly managed from a physical work capacity point of view, the primary goal always being to return the employee in need of assistance to full working capacity as soon as possible. The burning question has, however, always remained: “What happens to the employee in the meantime?” This study focused on exactly that question, the aim being to develop a comprehensive tool to assist all parties concerned in managing the affected employee through the application of task-specific job accommodation. The predetermined goal of the study was to develop a task-specific job accommodation tool for a physically-demanding position. This was achieved through a number of steps, which included an extensive literature review, a thorough job analysis, identification of a suitable test battery with related minimum physical requirements and cut scores, interviews, and the eventual development of the tool. Once the task-specific job accommodation tool was completed, the next step was to make use of three case studies to assist in illustrating the way the tool is to be implemented, as well as to show the potential value of its implementation. The information from three actual incapacity cases in the company concerned was used for these case studies. The results from this study are extremely positive and the three case studies have provided a glimpse of the potential value that could be added through the implementation of the job accommodation tool. The final product will greatly assist the company concerned in managing incapacitated employees in a manner that is beneficial to both the company and the individuals involved. Hopefully, this study will contribute to bring about a new era in the way South African companies and their occupational health departments approach the management of their incapacitated employees. Copyright 2008, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Bester, GF 2008, A task-specific approach to job accommodation in physically-demanding positions, DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-10292008-180442 / > D498/gm / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Biokinetics, Sport and Leisure Sciences / unrestricted