Sickness absence due to psychosocial health complaints, such as fatigue, burnout and work-family conflicts, represents a major concern in Western societies [
1]. In the Netherlands, about one in every three employees seen by their occupational physician are absent from work because of such complaints [
2,
3]. Reintegration of employees after psychosocial absenteeism causes more difficulties and generally takes longer than return to work following physical problems. Also, the consequences of this type of sickness absence involve enhanced payments and reduced productivity [
4]. Thus, successful identification and early intervention with these employees can contribute to the prevention of sickness absence, and should receive profound attention in occupational health practice. Traditionally, intervention programs to reduce psychosocial health complaints, and following sickness absence, are accessible for employees who acknowledge wrestling with these problems. Also, supervisors or personnel departments who notice employees struggling with psychosocial health difficulties support participation in such purposive programs. Both subjective initiatives frequently depend on features such as having certain personality characteristics, holding specific positions or working at particular departments, and are only feasible if financial support from the employer is available and, at best, after repeated sickness absence spells. Overall, work-related intervention programs are initiated when the employee, supervisor or personnel department explicitly summons for assistance, in case of psychosocial health complaints or sickness absence, and if it is within the bounds of possibilities of the company. Though, one could ask oneself if this is the most adequate selection method, when it comes to effectively identifying and preventive intervening. Employees who are aware of an explicit problem and who are able to formulate the underlying issue do not automatically have to be those who benefit most from an intervention program. As well, intervening with those frequently on sick leave does not have to be the timeliest strategy to prevent further sickness absence. Alternatively, intervention programs could be directed at apparently healthy employees, who are objectively selected and identified to be at increased risk for sickness absence due to psychosocial health complaints. These employees may lack insight in their personal situation and may not be able to optimally manage problems that increase their risk on this type of sickness absence. However, certain fundamental prerequisites should be met to make this selection procedure practicable. Specifically, it must be feasible to objectively screen and identify employees at risk for sickness absence, and there must be an effective preventive intervention program. These requisites involve three essential challenges, i.e. a concise screening instrument for early identification of employees must be available; employees must be willing to be screened for their increased risk for sickness absence and selected employees need to be motivated to participate in a non-requested intervention program. In a foregoing study, an instrument consisting of predictive items for both men and women was developed to screen employees for their risk of sickness absence due to psychosocial health complaints [
5,
6]. With regard to the second and third motivational condition, it is unclear if objective selection is more effective than the traditional subjective selection method of personal enlistment. In this paper, we reported different stages of the objective selection process throughout which employees either dropped out or were excluded, and compared it with the subjective selection process. Also, characteristics of ineligible and ultimately selected employees, for participation in a randomized trial, were described. We hypothesize that these selected employees are actually those at risk for sickness absence, who will consequently benefit more from the preventive intervention program than others. If so, the objective selection process is thought to be effective and successful.