When a full-time or temporary employee leaves your company, an exit medical assessment helps ensure that your business and former employee are covered. The assessment is critical for employees exiting from positions that involve working around noise, in physically challenging environments, with high-risk chemicals, and other onsite safety concerns.
In the past, ex-employees have filed for Workers’ Compensation claims against their former employers, even months after they have left their posts. If there is a possibility that an ex-employee could be injured in your work environment but no health report on exit, defending against the claims becomes difficult. However, including an exit assessment into your risk management can help you defend against such claims while addressing employee risk.
What the medical entails
Employers arrange and pay for the exit health assessment. It sets the employee’s health baseline as they leave your care. The assessment helps your employees understand their current health status and potential health risks they should watch out for in their future.
According to the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017, an employee can ask for a voluntary exit assessment if they intend to retire permanently from the industry. However, such requests should be made within three months before and after exiting employment.
The assessment may include:
- Spirometry
- Skin testing
- Musculoskeletal assessment
- A high altitude medical test
- Hearing tests
- Vision tests
Note that these tests depend on the employee’s work environment.
The benefits
Regardless of the reason the employee is leaving your company, always make sure that you arrange for an exit medical. So, what are the benefits of these medicals:
1. Improve employee morale and loyalty
Conducting exit assessments lets employees know you are serious about their health, whether they decide to stay with your company. This makes employees feel valued, increasing morale throughout your workforce.
Consider this; would you work for someone who doesn’t care about your well-being? Neither will your employees!
2. Improve brand image
Exit assessments conducted by an occupation health Brisbane specialist show the community and future employees that your business is compassionate. This helps you earn a higher trust level when compared to money-hungry companies, especially since you are actively vested in your team. People are more willing to support businesses that support their teams.
3. Reduce claims and insurance costs
Proving that employees leave in a healthy state mitigates the future risk of a former employee slapping your company with an expensive insurance claim. When you have pre-employment, ongoing, and exit health assessments, you have a logical record of the employee’s health. This also proves that you have done all you can to monitor and help improve the employee’s health.
4. Support the increasingly ageing workforce
Your older employees are more likely to get injuries or fall ill. And the workforce in Australia is ageing, as over 15 percent of the Australian workforce is aged 65 and above.
When these employees retire, the exit health assessment helps identify critical health concerns that might have developed because of the duties they perform. Plus, an assessment identifies and addresses health concerns due to ageing, such as lung disease, dementia, cataracts, and adult-onset diabetes.
Hiring professional occupational health consultants to perform exit assessments shows that your company cares about its ageing workforce. This also indicates that you are setting them up for a healthy, happy retirement after all the years of hard work they have put into employment.
Conclusion
An exit medical assessment is critical when you are parting ways with your employees. Notwithstanding the termination reason, make sure you arrange for the assessment to prevent future risk for your business.
For more information about running a successful business, continue reading our other articles.
