Writing a Physical Demands Description for Each Role

Why this matters

When a tech's doctor writes "light duty" on a return-to-work note, the doctor is guessing what your job involves. When a candidate asks how heavy the work is, the answer is usually "it's physical". When an injured worker's claim turns on whether climbing is an essential part of the job, the only evidence is whatever you wrote down before anyone got hurt. A physical demands description is one page per role saying, in measured terms, what the body does on that job: what is lifted and how often, what is climbed, how long is spent driving, crawling, and kneeling. It takes an afternoon per role, and it is the document every hiring, injury, pregnancy, and aging-tech decision in this group leans on.

The finished description

Start from what you are building. This is an HVAC service tech role at a 15-person shop, written from four weeks of real data.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS: HVAC SERVICE TECH    Rev 2026-03
Basis: 4 wks tickets (84 calls), shop scale,
       van telematics, 2 half-day ride-alongs
Strength level ......... HEAVY (DOT definitions)
Heaviest 1-person lift . 55 lb, 24 ft ladder, occ.
Regular lifts .......... 30 to 35 lb, freq.:
                         refrigerant jug, recovery
                         machine, tool bag
Team lift or dolly ..... condenser, furnace, coil,
                         any item over 55 lb
Carry .................. up to 150 ft, 1 flight
Ladder climbs .......... 2 to 4 per day, to 24 ft
Roof access ............ 6 of 84 calls, harness
Attic or crawl entry ... 3 to 5 per week
Kneel, crouch .......... frequent
Overhead reach ......... occasional
Driving ................ avg 2.4 h/day, max 4.1
Grip, hand tools ....... constant
Environment ............ attics, roofs, outdoors,
                         heat and cold
PPE .................... harness on roofs; half
                         mask under written program
ESSENTIAL: diagnose and repair at the equipment,
  climb to it, drive the route, carry own tools
MARGINAL: shop restock, van wash, parts runs

Everything below is how each line was produced, what it is for, and how it goes wrong.

Collect before you write

Writing from memory produces the job as the owner remembers doing it fifteen years ago. Pull three sources first.

Tickets. Four weeks of completed calls for the role, enough to include a normal mix. Count the calls involving each demand: a ladder, a roof, an attic or crawlspace, an install assist. For the card above that meant reading 84 tickets and tallying.

Telematics or timesheets. Average and longest daily drive time. Here the average was 2.4 hours a day and the longest day 4.1. Use real numbers, because "some driving" tells a back-injury doctor nothing.

A ride-along. Two half days with an experienced tech, noting what the tickets do not show: how far the carry is from the van, whether the attic hatch is in a closet, how often the tech kneels at a furnace.

What breaks if you skip it: the description understates the job. That looks harmless until a return-to-work note clears a tech for a job that does not exist and he is re-injured on day two.

Weigh the actual loads

Put the real items on a scale: the tool bag as it actually leaves the van, the ladder, a full refrigerant jug, the recovery machine, the vacuum pump. A luggage scale or a bathroom scale works. On this card the extension ladder came in at 55 lb and the regular lifts at 30 to 35 lb. Those are this shop's items; yours will differ by brand, size, and how much the tech packs into the bag, which is why you weigh rather than look up.

Then name the team-lift rule: anything over 55 lb at this shop goes to two people or a dolly. That rule is what lets the heaviest one-person lift be 55 lb rather than the weight of a condenser.

What breaks if you skip it: "lifts up to 100 lb" written because a condenser weighs about that, when the shop never lets one person lift a condenser. That line is false, and it screens people out of a job they could do.

Use the standard words for how often

Frequency needs common terms or a doctor, an insurer, and you will mean three different things. The definitions most clinicians and vocational experts use come from the U.S. Department of Labor's Dictionary of Occupational Titles:

The same source gives strength levels by those frequencies. Medium work is 20 to 50 lb occasionally and 10 to 25 lb frequently. Heavy work is 50 to 100 lb occasionally and 25 to 50 lb frequently. This role is Heavy on both counts: the 55 lb ladder occasionally, and the 30 to 35 lb items frequently, which sits inside Heavy's 25 to 50 lb frequent band and above Medium's 10 to 25. A clinician reading "Heavy, DOT" knows what that means without a phone call.

Counts that are not a share of the day (climbs, entries, roof calls) stay as counts. Roof access was 6 of 84 calls, about 7 percent, so it is listed as a count with the harness requirement attached rather than as a frequency term.

Mark essential and marginal functions

Under the ADA, which covers employers with 15 or more employees (many state laws reach smaller shops), a qualified person is one who can do the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. The EEOC's regulations at 29 CFR 1630.2(n) list what counts as evidence that a function is essential, and one item is a written job description prepared before the job was advertised or candidates were interviewed. That is the strongest reason to write this now rather than after a dispute.

Essential means the job exists to do it, few others can do it, or it takes real skill. Diagnosing at the equipment, climbing to it, and driving the route are essential for a service tech. Restocking the shop and washing the van are marginal, and a tech who cannot do them can still do the job.

What breaks if you skip it: everything on the page reads as required. A tech recovering from a shoulder injury who cannot do the overhead van restock looks unqualified for the whole role when he is not.

List the environment and PPE, and what PPE implies

Heat, cold, heights, confined spaces, dust, and solvents belong on the card because they decide who can do the work safely, not just who can lift. PPE does too, and one entry has a consequence: if the role can require a respirator, then under OSHA's respirator standard, 29 CFR 1910.134, the tech needs a medical evaluation and a fit test before using one, so "half mask under written program" is a medical requirement of the job that a new hire and their doctor should see.

Put it to work

Hiring. Before an offer, you may describe the job and ask whether a candidate can perform its functions with or without accommodation, but you may not ask about medical conditions. After a conditional offer, a medical exam is allowed only if every new hire in that job category gets it, and it is what the card is for: the examiner measures against the card, not against "physical work".

Return to work. Send the card to the treating clinician with the first visit, not after the light-duty note. The note comes back in your terms ("no lifts over 25 lb, no ladders") and maps straight onto the lines you wrote, which is what makes a modified duty plan possible. See related: Returning to Work After an Injury: The Modified Duty Plan.

Pregnancy and aging. The same card is what a pregnant tech takes to her clinician and what an owner and a 58-year-old tech sit down with to decide what changes. See related: Accommodating a Pregnant Tech, and The Aging Tradesperson: Adjusting the Work, Not Quitting It.

Reducing the demand. Reading your own card is often the first time anyone sees that the Heavy rating comes from a single item. Here it is the 55 lb ladder. A lighter ladder or a ladder rack at hip height changes the card, and every future injury note, more than any training does. See related: Setting Up the Van to Reduce Strain.

What changes the description

A different role in the same shop. An install tech at this shop is a different card, not this card with more boxes ticked: daily team lifts, more roof time, and longer days. A dispatcher's card exists too, and it lists constant sitting, screen time, and phone time; see related: The Hidden Load on the Dispatcher.

A different trade. A pool tech's card is dominated by chemical containers and repeated bending at the skimmer; a garage door tech's by overhead work and spring tension; a cleaning tech's by constant standing, vacuums carried on stairs, and repetitive reach. Same fields, different numbers.

A change in the work. New equipment, a new route mix, or a new team-lift rule changes the card. Revise it at least once a year and whenever the work changes, date every revision, and keep the old ones. A claim is decided on the card that was in force on the date of injury.

The failure mode, concretely

The most common bad card is a copy of an internet job ad: "must be able to lift 50 to 100 lb, work in all conditions". It describes no job, so a clinician cannot use it, and as a qualification standard it can screen out people with disabilities, which under 42 USC 12112(b)(6) has to be job-related and consistent with business necessity. The second is the card nobody updated: written in 2019 with a 75 lb compressor lift that the shop moved to a dolly two years ago. Both fail at the same moment, the first time someone outside the shop reads them.

This is not legal advice. Before you use the card to decline a candidate, end someone's employment, or refuse a restriction, take it, the tickets behind it, and the decision to an employment attorney or your HR provider.

References

• EEOC, 29 CFR 1630.2(n) (essential functions) and guidance on pre-employment and post-offer medical inquiries under the ADA; 42 USC 12112(b)(6) and (d)
• U.S. Department of Labor, Dictionary of Occupational Titles, strength and frequency definitions
• OSHA, 29 CFR 1910.134 (respirator medical evaluation and fit testing)
• See related: Returning to Work After an Injury: The Modified Duty Plan
• See related: Fit for Duty: When and How to Ask