The Importance of Hearing Protection In The Workplace

Every healthy human is born with five senses: The ability to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. The loss of any of these senses can have a hugely detrimental impact on the quality of our life. It is vitally important that we take great care and every precaution to ensure we protect them. Specifically, in noisy working environments, it’s important to protect your ears.

Hearing loss and damage can occur at 85 decibels of noise over an average of 8 hours. To put this in some sort of context we hold normal conversations typically at 60 decibels, understanding how noise impacts our hearing is important due to the short time it can take for hearing loss to occur. For example, once noise levels exceed 100 decibels a person can suffer hearing damage in as little as 15 minutes.

So, when does hearing loss, or hearing impairment become the result of work-related exposure? It’s clear to see from the above comparative noise chart that we live in a world where loud noises are common, from listening to loud music to heavy city traffic, it can all contribute to hearing loss.

Occupational Hearing Protection for Employees

Any harm to workers or employees will not only cause potential issues with productivity to a company but also increase its liability. Under The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005. Employers have a legal duty to “prevent or reduce the risks to health and safety from exposure to noise at work” The best way to protect hearing loss to an employee is to eliminate noise hazards, but in the real world this isn’t always possible.

NIOSH recommends controlling exposure to noise levels by a method called the hierarchy of controls which includes protective measures from the most to least effective:

• Elimination – removal of noise hazard
• Substitution – replace the noise hazard
• Engineering controls – isolate the noise hazard or worker
• Administrative controls – change the way workers perform the job 
• Personal protective equipment – PPE – use of protective gear or PPE by workers 

Designing & applying a plan for the workplace

As an employer, the most effective way to reduce the risk of work-related hearing loss is to conduct a Noise Risk Assessment to understand the risks associated with workplace activities that are undertaken within the organization.

• Complete a Noise Assessment to Identify the hazards (Exposure to levels of noises around or in excess of 85dB can eventually lead to NIHL.)
• Review who is potentially at risk of harm from the hazards identified (employees, visitors, etc.)
• Assess and provide and risk rating for all the risks identified 
• Judge if all current controls measures are being implemented and used to reduce noise exposure.
• Implement control measures (using the hierarchy of control) and create an action plan for items or areas that have been deemed non-compliant (to legal limits) or require improvement. Create actions, nominate a responsible person, assign a due date and track progress. 
• Monitor the effectiveness and implementation of control measures to see if they are still suitable and sufficient. Conduct regular Noise Risk Assessments to become more proactive in the identification of early signs of adverse effects that can be caused by noise exposure. 

The importance of hearing protection in the workplace along with health surveillance is vitally important as once a risk assessment has been completed it will provide an employer with all the information that’s needed to create an effective plan for surveillance. This will allow the monitoring of employees (who are at risk) hearing to review for any deterioration that may occur. It also allows for the most effective PPE to be used for specific risks identified.

Health Surveillance & Audiometry Testing

Once the noise risk assessment has been established the easiest way to monitor the ongoing exposure is to perform yearly/ three-yearly audiometry tests (hearing tests) to help detect any early damage to hearing from ongoing exposure to noise.

What happens during an audiometry test?

• Completion of a questionnaire to establish what type of hearing protection is worn and the type of exposure to noise.
• Checking the health of someone’s ear canal and eardrum using a specific instrument called an otoscope.
• Performing an audiometry test which takes around 5-10 minutes – the test is performed while wearing earphones and a sequence of beeps (frequencies) are sent through the headphones for the individual to identify by pressing a button to confirm they’ve heard it.
• The audio results are checked, and onward referral is made if any issues are identified.

A hearing test is done to establish a baseline and a comparative test should be performed 12 months later to ensure no rapid hearing loss occurs. If these two tests don’t identify any issues, then two yearly or three-yearly tests can be performed depending on exposures and requirements.

If you’re unsure if noise is an issue, then please don’t hesitate to contact us to perform a noise risk assessment and advise on if health surveillance is required in your workplace.

At Orbis Environmental and Safety we provide full service from Noise monitoring, Risk management, and Occupational health, which means you are in great hands to have full control, but also as we combine services, we can save a significant cost over having different providers.