Just picture for a minute you’re a salesperson. Today, you’re having a very important call with a potential client. Your company is being looked at for a job and numerous individuals from your business have come together on a conference call. As the call continues, voices go up and down…and are at times difficult to hear. But you’re fairly certain you got the gist of it.
Cranking the speaker up just makes it sound more distorted. So you simply do your best, interpreting what’s being said the best you can. You’ve become fairly good at that.
There comes a point in the discussion where things become particularly hard to hear. Then all of a sudden you hear, “so what can your company do to help us with this”?”
You panic. You didn’t catch the last few minutes and aren’t sure what issue they’re trying to solve. This is your deal and your boss is depending on you. So now what?
Do you ask them to repeat themselves? They may think you weren’t paying attention. What about resorting to some slippery sales jargon? No, they’ll see right through that.
Every single day, people everywhere are dealing with scenarios like this at work. Oftentimes, they try to pretend they’re fine and wing it.
But how is untreated hearing loss actually impacting your work as a whole? The following will help us find out.
Unequal pay
The Better Hearing Institute surveyed 80,000 people utilizing the same approach the Census Bureau uses to obtain a representative sampling.
They discovered that people who have neglected hearing loss earn about $12,000 less per year than people who can hear.
Hey, that’s not fair!
Hearing loss effects your general performance so it’s not difficult to understand the above example. The deal couldn’t be closed, regrettably. When they got the impression that the salesperson wasn’t paying attention to them, they went with someone else. They decided to work with a company that listens better.
He missed out on a $1000 commission.
It was only a misunderstanding. But that doesn’t change the impact on his career. If he was wearing hearing aids, imagine how different things might have been.
On the Job Injuries
People who have untreated hearing loss are almost 30% more likely to incur a serious on-the-job injury according to a study conducted by the American Medical Association. And, your danger of ending up in the emergency room after a significant fall goes up by 300% according to other studies.
And it may come as a shock that people with minor hearing loss had the highest danger among those who have hearing loss. Maybe, their hearing loss is minor enough that they don’t even know about it.
How to have a successful career with hearing loss
You have so much to offer an employer:
- Personality
- Empathy
- Skills
- Confidence
- Experience
Hearing loss shouldn’t overshadow these. But it is often a factor. It could be having an effect on your job more than you know. Here are a few ways to lessen that impact:
- Never overlook using your hearing aids at work and all of the rest of the time. When you do this, lots of of the accommodations won’t be necessary.
- Keep a well lit work area. Even if you’re not a lip reader, looking directly at them can help you make out what’s being said.
- Before a meeting, find out if you can get a written agenda and overview. It will be easier to follow the conversation.
- Speak up when a task surpasses your abilities. Your boss might, for example, ask you to go and do some work in an area of the building that can be very noisy. Offer to do something else to make up for it. By doing that, your boss won’t think you’re just trying to get out of doing work.
- Understand that when you’re interviewing, you’re not required to reveal that you have hearing loss. And it’s not okay for the interviewer to ask. But the other side is whether your hearing loss will have an effect on your ability to have a successful interview. In that case, you might decide to disclose this before the interview.
- When you’re talking to people, make certain you face them. Try not to have phone conversations as much as possible.
- Write a respectful accommodations letter to your boss. By doing this, you have it in writing.
- Request that you get a hearing aid compatible (HAC) phone. The sound doesn’t pass through background noise but rather goes directly into your ear. You will require hearing aids that will work with this technology to use one.
Hearing loss at work
Even if you have mild hearing loss, it can still impact your performance at work. But many of the obstacles that neglected hearing loss can create will be solved by having it treated. We can help so contact us!