A Reasonable Adjustment for the Hearing Impaired

There is often a tendency for normal individuals not to take seriously the disability of a person being hearing impaired. This may be so as the disability is not visible and those within the category of being normal do not have an inkling about the challenges encountered by the hearing impaired. It is often thought of that with the help of hearing aids, the hearing impaired instantly has better hearing, but the truth is actually a far wide of reality. Let me relate a saga – a sorry one at that – of an employee suffering from a hearing disability who has been dragged through a performance management process mainly because of misunderstanding, failure of the employers to make a reasonable adjustment and frustration on behalf of the employee with a hearing disability.

The hearing impaired employee had long since been disabled with a profound hearing loss since birth due to German measles during gestation. His being hearing impaired made him hear high-pitched sounds with one ear, and low-pitched ones with the other. He was able to obtain 20% hearing in a sound proof room with hearing aids on. Hearing aids likewise pick up noise and not just speech and his co-workers were not aware of this fact as they were under the notion that once on hearing devices, the hearing impaired can hear better. Such was the misunderstanding that brought about tremendous difficulties and frustration regarding the disabled employee in the workplace.

Although he could conduct a normal conversation in a one on one setting with no background interference, the case is not such when the setting is otherwise. The hearing impaired employee’s colleagues have no knowledge of the extent of this man’s hearing disability struggles. Everybody in the workplace knew he was hearing impaired and that’s all. His co-workers would often flare up in instances when they would talk to the disabled employee with his back towards them as the latter didn’t respond. Thus, his co-workers would get annoyed thinking that they were being ignored and their subsequent reaction was to shout at the hearing impaired worker.

The employee would eventually hear the shout but would be astonished to see the face on an angry co-worker. Consequently, the hearing impaired worker would react in the same manner. The same is the case when people in the office would talk to the hearing impaired employee along the corridors with background equipment working. In due time, the employee with the hearing disability was transferred to another department with a foreign staff. The problem was no less alleviated as the workplace was still plagued with interference from air conditioning and industrial machinery. More conflict arose and the hearing impaired employee was suspended on pay as a result and transferred yet again.

The employer body which was a government hospital that cares for other people apparently neglected to have conce
for their hearing impaired employee and did not apply the principle of reasonable adjustment towards the disabled as dictated by the law. The employer could have conducted a meeting to discuss the case of their handicapped worker and to direct those within the workplace to adjust to his hearing impairment. It would have been more sensible if the employer took time to explain the particulars of the employee’s hearing disability and for them to have some consideration. The saga ends with the hearing impaired worker being “let go” with a cash settlement.

The moral of the story then is that if one can ask a one armed man what they needed to be able to work safely and efficiently, it may be prudent to do the same with the hearing impaired.