Fitness for Duty Evaluations
What is an FFD evaluation?
The Fitness For Duty (FFD) evaluation is an employment evaluation conducted with a current employee that has a distinct purpose for an employer. The purpose of the FFD evaluation is to measure a current employee's risk in three areas:
- the risk to self
- the risk to others
- the risk to the employer’s interests
The goal of the Fitness For Duty evaluation is to assess the employee's functionality against specific job demands.
SEAS follows the IACP Police Guidelines for Fitness For Duty evaluations. These guidelines also include technology that may be used for these evaluations. This may include telehealth, which would include a face to face with video and audio capability.
The FFD assists employers in determining the capacity of a current employee to perform a job and to identify any risks to performing essential job duties.
Who needs an FFD?
An employer will want to request an FFD if concern about job performance arises due to:
- a medical condition
- questionable behavior that is evidenced by a change in the employee’s job performance
Based on ADA guidelines, one of these criteria
must
be met in order for the FFD to be considered necessary.
The non-biased opinion and analysis of the clinician may include a summary of medical records or collateral contact information, psychological test data, and potential validity/effort indicators.
To this effect, treatment recommendations appropriate to the outcome would assist an individual to return to work or effectively perform work duties, depending on the conclusion. Appropriate modifications can also be suggested.
What are the limitations of an FFD?
An FFD, although it addresses safety and risk, does have its limitations in that it only assesses safety and risk for the current timeframe.
It does NOT predict
future risk of harm to self or others, nor can the FFD predict the likelihood of violence in the workplace.
With that said, a person’s risk for violence can be determined by a combination of contributing factors, but those risk factors can change and evolve over time.
The FFD will assess for the
capacity
for violence and risk, based on multiple risk factors. For example:
- the employee may make suicidal statements
- the employee may make a threat to harm others. This could be through text, social media, or verbally to a coworker or supervisor, etc.
- the employee may be excessively angry or is preoccupied with revenge.
- the employee may engage in stalking behaviors, domestic violence, or have a propensity for violent or aggressive behavior.
- they may show a change in their emotional, behavioral, or cognitive functioning where the primary concern is aggression or violence.
These are just a few examples of the many possible risk factors that are analyzed by our clinicians in an FFD evaluation.
What records might be requested prior to the scheduled FFD?
The psychologist must be a doctoral level practitioner. The psychologist should request and review any records received from the employer. A job description should be included so that a thorough job analysis can be done. An example of other records may include treatment records from an EAP or psychiatric/medical hospitalization.
What is included in the FFD report?
1) A summary from the clinical interview with the employee.
2) The results of any testing the clinician conducted with the employee, such as personality assessment. There may be times in which a neuropsychological FFD may be warranted and this testing data would be included.
3) A summary of mental status observations.
4) A summary of any collateral interviews conducted will also be included. For example, treating providers, supervisors, family members, and HR managers may be interviewed.
5) The analysis section will provide the final conclusion and summary to support the conclusion.
6) Finally, the report will include the questions and responses based on the evidence gathered by the provider.