Glossary
Reduced psychophysical capacity
Reduced psychophysical capacity is a state in which a worker cannot perform work safely because of alcohol, drugs, other psychoactive substances, medication or exhaustion, and which the employer must, under ZVZD-1, recognise and handle under a predefined procedure.
The concept comes from the Slovenian Occupational Health and Safety Act (ZVZD-1). A worker may not work or be present at the workplace under the influence of alcohol, drugs or other prohibited substances; at workplaces with a higher risk of accidents, also not under the influence of medication that can affect psychophysical capacity, where the safety statement with the risk assessment so provides. The employer establishes such a state under a procedure and in a manner laid down in its internal rules and removes the affected worker from work.
In practice the harder part is how a suspicion is recognised and handled: who may detect and document it, who may order and who may carry out a test, what follows a refusal or a disputed result, how the result and other personal data are protected, and how comparable cases are handled by comparable criteria. A policy alone does not deliver this; defined responsibilities, trained people, records and regular monitoring do.
Handling reduced psychophysical capacity is the subject of the OVV certification scheme – Responsible Management and a Safe Working Environment – which assesses the employer's system, not the health of individual employees.
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