Physical Ability Test

What a physical ability test is

A physical ability test is a selection instrument that measures whether an applicant can perform a specific physical effort that the role requires: lifting a set weight, carrying it a known distance, or holding a physical position for a known length of time.

It is run by the employer in order to compare applicants. That fact alone separates it from the medical examination, and the separation is not one to relax. It sits among the selection instruments an employer administers itself, alongside a cognitive ability test, which measures reasoning, and a work sample test, which hands the candidate a piece of the job.

A physical ability test is not an occupational fitness examination

An occupational fitness certificate is the output of a medical examination carried out under the regulation on occupational fitness examinations and noncommunicable diseases (لائحة فحوصات اللياقة المهنية والأمراض غير المعدية). That regulation was issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development under Ministerial Decision 33232 of 11/3/1447H, was published in the Umm Al Qura gazette on 2/5/1447H, corresponding to 24/10/2025, and takes effect 180 days after the date of its publication.

Article 17(4) of the occupational fitness regulation is where the difference is settled. It bars the employer from viewing any medical detail and confines the employer’s right to knowing the final occupational determination: fit, fit with restrictions or considerations, or unfit, without disclosure of the diagnosis or of private medical data.

The final limb of that provision carries the weight, and it cannot be dropped for brevity. The employer’s right is confined to one of the three determinations, and the diagnosis and private medical data are excluded by express words rather than by implication. The procedural guide issued under the regulation extends the bar to administrative staff themselves: staff who are not healthcare practitioners accredited by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties may not view health records or medical reports.

So the output of that examination, as the employer receives it, is one of three determinations, and the person responsible for it is a specialist physician, not the human resources department. The output of a physical ability test is a score on a physical task, and it is not a route for reaching what the employer is barred from seeing.

Why the confidentiality wall gives a physical ability test no licence

One argument holds that a physical ability test has support in the occupational fitness regulation, on the ground that physical examination is mentioned there in general terms. That reasoning is unsound, and for a subtler reason than the difference in subject.

Article 17(4) of the occupational fitness regulation restricts the employer and does not empower it. It was written to stop the employer reaching detail about an applicant’s body. Citing it to permit an instrument that the employer runs itself, and whose full output the employer reads, turns the protection into a route: a provision that forbids is made to authorise.

The physical ability test and the medical examination also differ in their subject, in who conducts them, in who sees the result, and in the purpose the result serves. Because they differ on all four, a rule from one cannot be transferred to the other, and the reason is more than a difference of name.

What a physical ability test measures comes from a requirement in the job

Every task in the test traces back to something actually performed in the role, at the amount it takes there. If the heaviest item handled in the job is a box of known weight, that weight is what gets tested, not a higher weight chosen on no stated basis.

The source of that amount is an analysis of the job. A threshold not derived from that analysis excludes applicants on a requirement that does not exist in the work. In the vocabulary of test validity, that is content in the test with no counterpart in the job, which is what content evidence examines.

Deriving a physical ability test threshold, with a worked example

The derivation described above is not a general statement. It is a calculation whose figures are written down. The example below is assumed to show the method, and its figures are hypothetical and are not to be carried over to any actual job.

Take a warehouse handling role, and suppose the job analysis shows that the person in it moves a box weighing 12 kg, 40 times in a shift of 8 hours, from floor level to a height of 1.4 metres.

• Total moved in the shift: 12 multiplied by 40, which is 480 kg.
• Rate: 8 hours is 480 minutes, divided by 40 lifts, which is one lift every 12 minutes.
• Heaviest single load: 12 kg, the same on every lift.

So what should be tested? The figure that describes the role is 12 kg repeated at intervals, not a higher figure lifted once. The task therefore becomes lifting 12 kg to the same height a set number of times within a set period, and the marking key states what counts as completion and what counts as stopping.

Compare that with a threshold raised as a precaution to a single lift of 20 kg. In the first place, it measures something the job does not ask for: the heaviest load in the role is 12 kg, so the 8 kg difference is a manufactured requirement. In the second place, it says nothing about what the job does ask for: lifting 20 kg once reveals nothing about bearing 480 kg spread across a shift, because the first is momentary capacity and the second is cumulative endurance. The raised threshold excludes applicants on a requirement that does not exist and leaves the real requirement unmeasured.

That gives a rule: the figure and its source in the job are written on the same line. A threshold with no line stating its source is a threshold its author cannot defend when asked about it.

What spoils a physical ability test

• A threshold raised as a precaution with no basis in an actual task, which turns the instrument into a barrier rather than a measurement.
• Measuring general fitness instead of the task itself, so that sport is measured rather than work.
• Applying it to some applicants for a role and not to others, which leaves the comparison without meaning.
• Different conditions from one applicant to the next: heat, flooring, or an aid made available to one of them.
• Running it with no safety arrangements and no warm up, so that the effort itself becomes a source of harm.
• Asking the applicant why they stopped and recording the answer, which brings into the selection record something that falls within the medical examination and that the employer is barred from.

The last of these can happen without anyone intending it. When a physical task is not completed, a natural question arises about the reason, and the answer may well be health information. The sound practice is to record what happened as performance: the task was completed or not completed, within the stated time or short of it. Anything beyond that is not something a physical ability test collects.

Reducing the demand comes before setting a physical ability test

Before asking who can bear a repeated load, ask whether it has to be carried in that way at all. Addressing the hazard in the work itself comes before selecting the people strong enough to bear it.

An organisation that raises its selection threshold to avoid fixing a badly designed task has moved the cost onto applicants.

Apply that order to the example above. If the 12 kg box can be cut to half its weight by splitting its contents, or the lift to 1.4 metres removed by moving the shelf, the requirement has changed, and what is measured changes with it. The threshold is not a fixed property of the job. It reflects how the job is designed today.

How a physical ability test differs from a medical examination, a risk classification and training in safe performance

• The medical examination before starting work. It concerns the condition of the worker’s body, it is carried out by a specialist, and it produces one of the three determinations described above. It is the subject of the occupational fitness regulation, and it is not an instrument for comparing applicants.
• The risk classification of an occupation. It is a property of the occupation, decided separately, and it carries consequences for the medical examination and for how frequently that examination recurs. A physical ability test classifies no occupation and produces no property of one. It measures one person’s performance on one task.
• Training in safe performance. It is acquired after joining, and it can reverse a result. An applicant who failed the task using a poor lifting technique may complete it once taught the technique, in which case the test measured a method rather than an ability.

That last point sets a limit on how the score is interpreted. Unless every applicant is taught the technique in the same way before the test, the difference between them may be a difference in technique, and the score cannot separate the two.

What is kept from a physical ability test result

The output of a physical ability test is personal data about an identified applicant, so the Personal Data Protection Law (نظام حماية البيانات الشخصية), issued by Royal Decree M/19 of 9/2/1443H and amended by Royal Decree M/148 of 5/9/1444H, applies to it.

Article 10 of the Personal Data Protection Law permits processing only for the purpose for which the data was collected, subject to the exceptions it lists. Article 11(1) of the Personal Data Protection Law requires that purpose to relate directly to the controller’s purposes, and Article 11(3) of the Personal Data Protection Law confines the data to the minimum necessary to achieve it. Article 19 of the Personal Data Protection Law requires organisational, administrative and technical measures to safeguard what has been collected. Article 18 of the Personal Data Protection Law requires destruction once the data is no longer needed for the purpose, with retention only on a legal basis or for a pending case. Those are among the duties of the Personal Data Protection Law rather than all of them.

The retention periods for the occupational health record in Article 17(7) of the occupational fitness regulation are addressed to the body that holds the medical records, and they attach to that record. A physical ability test sheet is not a health record and does not form part of one, so it does not take that record’s period and is not lodged with it. In the sources we reviewed, we found no prescribed period for keeping the results of selection tests, so no period is suggested for them.

Whether a rule governs physical ability tests in the Saudi private sector

In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision addressed to physical ability tests, or to the other physical tests an employer runs for selection in the Saudi private sector: nothing on their conditions, on the amounts they may set, on who is exempt from them, or on keeping their results. That is a statement about how far our sourcing reached, not about the statute book, so none of those points is set out as a rule.

The occupational fitness regulation described above has the medical examination as its subject, which is a different thing from a physical ability test, so a rule from one is not carried across to the other. Anyone needing an answer for a particular job should go to the competent authority and its published document.

We also give no score at which a physical ability test counts as acceptable, no figure for how far it predicts performance, and no weight for it among selection instruments. The figures in the worked example above are assumed to show how a threshold is derived, and they are not approved values for any occupation.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.

Related terms

• Work Sample Test
• Test Reliability
• Integrity Testing
• Situational Judgement Test
• Assessment Centre