Reasonable adjustments

As an employer, you have some legal obligations around supporting your employees with hearing loss. Under the Equality Act 2010 (or the Disability Discrimination Act in Northern Ireland), employers are required to make 'reasonable adjustments' for people who are disabled because of hearing loss. Don't fear the price tag of providing this vital support – many adjustments will be simple and free or inexpensive to implement, such as improving the working environment, offering flexible working hours or providing assistive products.

The government’s Access to Work scheme is designed to help organisations cover the cost of more expensive workplace adjustments such as the provision of communication support. Remember, everyone is different and so the adjustments required will vary.

To be able to give the best tailored support, we recommend offering the employee the option of a workplace assessment, which outlines the changes that employers can make to remove barriers for staff with hearing loss.

Find out more about workplace assessments

Tips for improving the working environment

• To improve the acoustics in an office:
• use soft furnishings such as carpets
• install acoustic panels
• fit rubber caps on chair and table legs.
• Position an employee with hearing loss in a work area that has good acoustics and where they can see the rest of the room.
• Adjust the layout of a meeting room and use good lighting to help everybody see each other clearly, which is important for lipreading.
• If you play music in your workplace, either turn this off or down.
• If your employee uses a communication professional such as a sign language interpreter, factor in the need to seat an additional professional, and ensure that they are in a well-lit area.

Flexible working

People who are deaf or have hearing loss may need to work somewhere quieter and, if they need to, take time during the day to attend an audiology or cochlear implant appointment.

Assistive products and technology

There’s a wide range of products and technology that can help to remove barriers in the workplace for people who are deaf or have hearing loss – from amplified telephones to the Roger Pen, which is a conversation listener that can facilitate communication in meetings. Also consider a hearing loop for your meeting room to help hearing aid users understand speech over background noise. See the Action on Hearing Loss online shop to find out more.

It’s also worth considering that assistive technology doesn’t have to be an extra or specialised piece of equipment. Lots of everyday technology, such as smartphones and routine pieces of software, has built-in features that can enhance accessibility for people with hearing loss. 

Communication support

People who are deaf or have hearing loss will require different communication professionals depending upon their needs and the situation:

• sign language interpreters are trained to interpret spoken English into sign language and vice versa 
• lipspeakers convey the spoken word using clear lip shapes, facial expressions and natural gestures to clarify what is being said
• electronic notetakers type a summary of the spoken word onto a laptop using specialist software
• speech-to-text-reporters capture a word-for-word record of what's said by using a specialised phonetic keyboard to a computer; this can then be linked to one computer, or a public screen if there are several users who are deaf or have hearing loss.

Note: If you’re booking a sign language interpreter, to ensure quality, you must book a professional who is registered with either the National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind People (NRCPD) or the Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters (SASLI) in Scotland.

Book high-quality communication support through Action on Hearing Loss