The Efficacy of Hearing Aids in the Workplace

The majority of people with hearing loss are under retirement age.  Therefore, it’s crucial that we educate people with untreated hearing loss in the workforce to understand in this tough job market that hearing better could have profound implications for their marketability, success on the job and their earning potential.
In our latest MarkeTrak VIII publication “The efficacy of hearing aids in achieving compensation equity in the workplace” (Hearing Journal, October 2010) we have demonstrated conclusively in a study of 40,000 households that:

• People with untreated hearing loss lose as much as $30,000 annually, depending on their degree of hearing loss.
• For those that use them, hearing aids were shown to mitigate the impact of income loss by 90%-100% for those with milder hearing losses and from 65%-77% for those with severe to moderate hearing loss.
• The loss in income for people with untreated hearing loss due to underemployment is estimated at $176 billion, and the cost to society is estimated to be as high as $26 billion in unrealized federal taxes.
• There was a strong relationship between degree of hearing loss and unemployment for unaided subjects. Those with severe hearing loss had unemployment rates (15.6%) double that of the normal-hearing population (7.8%) and nearly double that of their aided peers (8.3%). Thus, one would expect that the cost to society of unemployment benefit payments is double that for normal-hearing households, depending on degree of hearing loss.

In the coming months we will be promoting this study nationally and developing OpEd and press releases for hearing health professionals to educate the public at a local level. We believe educating consumers about hearing loss and its relationship to job success is an effective strategy for influencing people with untreated hearing loss (and perhaps in denial) to seek hearing solutions earlier in their life.
Earlier this year we issued a Q & A article targeted to Human Resource executives. Hearing Health Professionals are invited to distribute this article to HR executives in their community as a means of introducing their services.

Assisting Employees with Hearing Loss

By Sergei Kochkin, Ph.D.

Question: What can organizations do to plan for and address the impact of employee hearing loss?

Answer: Employers can take a number of simple steps to educate employees about hearing loss and to facilitate the use of hearing aids, where needed.

In a 2009 survey of 46,000 U.S. households, the Better Hearing Institute (BHI) determined that over the past generation hearing loss grew at 160 percent of the U.S. population growth— primarily attributable to the aging of the American population. Yet the study found that 60 percent of people with hearing loss are below retirement age, meaning that 16.3 million people with hearing loss were in the U.S. workforce in 2010.

Previous research at BHI has shown that 50 percent of people with untreated hearing loss have never had their hearing checked by a professional and lack sufficient information to know whether they need to take action to correct it. Human resource professionals can help employees understand if they need treatment by:

Educating employees on the impact of untreated hearing loss on quality of life.

Encouraging employees to take valid online hearing tests such as the five-minute hearing evaluation offered by BHI.

Encouraging local hearing health professionals to conduct on-site hearing screenings.

In many cases hearing aids can help protect employees from being at a competitive disadvantage with peers. Organizations can encourage the use of hearing aids, when needed, by ensuring that health insurance covers such devices and by recommending that employees purchase hearing aids using pretax medical flexible spending account funds.

In addition, employers can:

• Create a corporate climate where hearing loss is recognized so those with hidden hearing loss feel more comfortable.
• Avoid noisy restaurants as meeting locations. 
• Summarize meeting minutes in writing to be sure that those with hearing issues are clear on the outcome of the meeting.
• Provide easy accommodations, such as moving an employee's desk away from noisy hallways, machines, or air conditioning and heating vents, or installing a phone that amplifies high frequencies.
• Build work environments that facilitate better hearing by choosing cubicles with noise-absorbent materials and equipping meeting rooms with an inductive loop that creates a wireless zone for hearing aids with telecoils, headsets or microphones.

By encouraging employees to treat hidden hearing loss rather than hide it, an employer creates a win-win situation by ensuring that the loss of hearing does not interfere with job performance, productivity, safety, or the employee’s career or quality of life on or off the job.

Sergei Kochkin, Ph.D., is executive director of the Better Hearing Institute, a not-for-profit that educates the public about hearing loss, prevention and treatment.

Reprinted from: The Society for Human Resource Management (www.shrm.org)