Posted By Stuart Burton A friend of mine asked me for some advice this morning. My friend employs four staff who are surveyors and are out travelling throughout the UK most of the week. One member of staff weighing over 160Kg (25 stones) has broken a number of office chairs due to his weight. A more suitable chair has been sourced costing in excess of £600. He has also damaged the rubber seal on the A pillar on the door opening of his company supplied car. This is something that he strongly denies is due to him although he is the only one who drives his vehicle. His job entails him visiting clients premises in order to undertake internal and external building surveys. Clients are based all over the UK and Ireland and could require him to drive for several hours at a time - taking breaks from driving every couple of hours. The work would normally have him using ladders/stepladders but this has been deemed as unsafe due to his size. Other staff are annoyed with the fact that he gets "the easy jobs" with him not being allowed to use ladders etc. My friend has already been warned that he must be extremely careful how he handles this in case that he is accused of discriminating against him or causing him embarrassment. There is an obvious need to undertake risk assessments for everything he does. Has anyone out there had to deal with this type of problem and are there any risk assessment forms that could be used where the wording cannot be construde as derogatory or embarrassing to the member of staff. A couple of health and safety manager friends have suggested that we could terminate his employment on health and safety gounds if it is felt that there is no suitable alternative role for him within the company. I would be interested to know your views on this. Best wishes ... Stu ...

Posted By Stuart Burton Hi Donk You've hit the nail on the head and I have got to say that, at first, I thought that the two health and safety guys I spoke to this morning were taking the preverbial but they were not. That's why I turned to this forum for some help. Most of us seek a practical solution to a problem where some would seek the easy way out - terminating employment, which in any case wouldn't be easy with employment law as it is now. I want to offer a solution - provide a suitable risk assessment that will satisfy the HSE, should the need ever arise. The company involved genuinely what to help their overweight employee and not get rid of him.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Stuart On the basis of the (unavoidably) limited information you've given, a definitive answer is unwise. What you do need to have much more explict regard for is the Disability Discrimination Act: arguably, he already has a physical impairment which requires his employer to make the adjustments necessary to enable him to work safely in so far as reasonably practicable - as you have already started to do. Actions to add: 1. Pay an occupational physician who is a Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine to conduct a health check in relation to his job responsibilities and to the terms of the DDA 2. Carry out any recommendations based on (1), including the possibility that he may be so at risk in his job that he is terminated, due to 'frustration of contract', valid within the terms of both the DDA and The Empployment Rights Act 1996. This is neither a 'windup' nor a green light but rather an orange light that may turn either red or green. As a Fellow of the CIPD as well as a CMIOSH, I'm very seriously attentive to the interactions between health and discrimination legislation which is much more subtle than those who blanketly exclude termination without sight of all relevant data. Health and safety legislation takes precedence over the other classes of rights (disability and tenure) but any action has to be justified on the basis of authoritative medical opinion, i.e. based on best available scientific research. Incidentally, I've been 'overweight' as long as I can remember (but nowhere near 160 kg!) and for the past year have turned my health around after a diagnosis of a respiratory problem I was afflicted by for over 40 years.

Posted By Christopher Stuart Does he have a history of sickness absence? Does he consider he has any health problems? Are you sure that this isn't about sour grapes from the rest of the team bringing pressure to bear to get him out of his post? What would happen if he had become registered disabled since taken up his post? Would they object then to his not climbing ladders? Doesn't he have skills that he can bring to the fore? Was he involved in this risk assessment? Was his weight brought up at this time? Where does it say in his contract details, that being visually overweight may result in his being removed from post. Have you weighed everyone else in the office? How many of them are overweight? Will they be getting referred to an Occupational Health Consultant. I think there is a need for constructive support. Sit down and talk to him. Come to an arrangement for how this matter can be moved forward. Having worked in OH, they tend not to appreciate being asked to do the managers dirty work for them. I hope for his sake he gets a good solicitor and the telephone numbers of some of the most aggressive journalists in the field. Some of the threads are touching on bully boy tactics. Surely, we are supposed to be about managing the risks, not kicking them off the field because we want to bow to pressure by members of the team.

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Yes... Merv When taken part in mindfully, Weight Watchers add a variety of social and other forms of positive reinforcement that works well for many. I found myself too impatient for the process when I tried before, but I may well give it another go. I was impressed with the effect during a conversation with a friend of mine who's a general and occupational physician aged 50, who told me he enrolled six years ago and succeeded in losing 35 pounds then and now uses it to keep v. fit (he also cycles to and from work daily and is a dedicated mountaineer). Christopher To me, it's odd that you interpret very thoughful approaches about balancing a host of factors that make disability and health management and unavoidably complex challenge. While it may suit the motives of 'aggressive journalists' to misrepresent tough realities, competent professional practice is rooted in data, scientifically gathered and evaluated and leaves political theory where it belongs.

Posted By William I myself am feeling very smug, having stopped smoking for over a year (and not one fly cig either) and lost two and half stone since new year, by a simple system of eating very little (use of eBay slimming pills, which work) and intensive exercise every day. The reason for me is relevant to this thread and i also enjoy telling people. i was 15st 7lbs, up to 16 and the Christmas pies, beer and turkey, so it was getting a bit out of hand, so i was determined after new year to lose the weight and did not feel like eating much due to a severe hangover on the 3rd. I also have my offshore survival refresher next week, i had my medical last year and was pulled up by the nurse about my weight (who was twice the size of me and not half a pretty), she informed me there may be problems next time unless i start to lose weight, then there was the possibility of being bumped off a helicopter flight due payload in bad weather ( a slim possibility) and this year i fancy doing some rope access work for the money and IRATA state that someone who is over 15 st should not be trained as a rope access technician, so i have lost the weight, which was difficult the first 2 weeks, but easy after that and i now weigh 13 st and no-longer have nightmares about Greenpeace storming RGIT Altens trying to save the whale! Out of curiosity do you have a company gym on site or do you have a benefits scheme which has a reduced membership rate with a local gym? And if you have a canteen what percentage of food served there could be classed as healthy options? (grilled chicken nuggets do not count). Perhaps the best way to minimise the risk is to try and eliminate it by assisting the employee in losing weight, and also trying to encourage all employee's to live a healthier lifestyle which would benefit the company even more.

Posted By Rob T Sorry gents but being fat doesn't mean that you have a disability unless you have other complications and doesn't mean that you come under the DDA unless clinically assessed as such! We have a 23 stone prop at my rugby club and he certainly isn't disabled! Well at least until he has consumed 15 pints.