According to the CDC, approximately 12% of all workers have hearing difficulties. The difficulties employees in the workplace have with hearing loss are twofold. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination based on disability, which includes hearing loss, statistics indicate a pay disparity between individuals with normal hearing and individuals with hearing loss.
Does Hearing Loss Affect Annual Income?
Studies have shown as much as an 8,000-dollar-a-year annual income difference between the two groups, and individuals with hearing loss made about 25% less than their peers with normal hearing.
It’s important to note that this was collated through multiple studies, many of which relied on self-reported data. While a clear conclusion about correlation cannot be drawn from this study alone, the figures are impactful.
What Can Your Workplace Do to Help?
There are a lot of things that can help employees with hearing loss in the workplace, both to feel comfortable voicing their needs and to navigate the physical challenges of hearing loss.
- Quiet Areas: Designated meeting rooms with adequate sound dampening can be incredibly helpful for people with hearing loss. The ability to process information and focus on individual sound sources in a noisy environment can depend heavily on someone’s type and degree of hearing loss.
Providing a space for meetings where a person doesn’t have to focus on listening as hard and can instead focus on what they’re hearing can make a big difference in someone’s ability to recall that information later. This benefits the person with hearing loss and the person or people they are meeting with. - Alter Communications: Many tools allow for enhanced communications, including real-time, AI-powered speech-to-text options that provide real-time text in live settings.
Integrating technologies that provide multiple ways of communicating in the workplace helps everyone. These can assist both people with hearing loss and people with normal hearing to better understand what’s being said, especially if they work from home and have their own background noises to contend with. - Conduct Awareness Training: Your colleagues may not know much about hearing loss. They might be unfamiliar with the different types, how it progresses, and how they can better dialogue with co-workers with hearing loss.
This can go a long way and sends a strong message of inclusiveness to colleagues who may have hearing loss but have not yet addressed it.
If you suspect you have a hearing loss and want help exploring treatment options, Gary D. Schwartzberg, Au.D., Doctor of Audiology can help.