Hi all
firstly may i say that i was "to short" to join the armed forces as a
student nurse in the 1980's! and i am in the "petite" section of the
clothing market!
i can feel my head rising above the parapet on this one (using correct PPE
for work at height, of course, as i cant see over it normally!)
i recall attending a lecture (The finer points i forget) where a speaker
described a person (i cant remember how tall but deemed to be "short
stature") going to court over the height of a counter in a bank or some
such institution and was trying the DDA under access to services, i
believe the legal person residing concluded that just because the person
was short in stature did not make them disabled just "disadvantaged in
society" and the bank won.
Given that this was over 5 years ago there may have been cases since,
I am unsure of the DDA application in relation to height these days and i
havent read about the case mentioned previously. whilst one can agree it
is long term, is it an impairment?...this will be argued both ways,
does it have a substantial and long-term adverse effect on ones ability to
carry out normal day-to-day activities? (just thinking out loud!- i
suppose it depends on the individual's perception)
we have a warehouse with a job requirement of a person between 5 ft 5
inches and 6 feet 2 inches i think it is....this recruitment issue is
managed by the interviewers. it has overhead fixed height lines this
restriction was introduced because we had several employees (all less than
5ft 2 ins) working in that area who pulled their chest muscles due to over
reaching ...one (4ft 9 ins) used to jump to reach the overhead line!it was
OH that picked up the problem instantly on a workplace visit and passed it
to H&S/management to deal with.it surprised me that no one had seen the
lady jumping.
when this height restriction was introduced people who were working in
there outside these height limits were redeployed to another warehouse on
the same site.
the number of accident reports from striking objects reduced as the taller
staff moved too!
jacqui
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