Handbook of Workplace Assessment: Evidence-Based Practices for Selecting and Developing Organizational Talent

Chapter 7. PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE

Deborah L. Gebhardt, Todd A. Baker

Physical ability assessment encompasses many fields of study, ranging from physiology and biomechanics to applied psychology and medicine. Organizations with physically demanding jobs use physical assessments for selection and classification purposes. The military has a long history of evaluating the physical demands of the tasks performed by soldiers. Similarly, public safety agencies need to ensure that their personnel are capable of meeting physical job demands due to the critical nature of their mission. In many jobs in the private sector, failure to meet the physical demands may result in injury and low productivity (for example, natural gas and electric industries).

A historical ...