Today, I invite us to focus on disability inclusion, specifically through the importance of disability accommodations in the workplace. After all, “disability” broadly refers to bodily differences that can impact an individual to various extents and in various circumstances, meaning leaders who seek to demonstrate an investment in disability as part of their organizational culture would do well to provide accommodations that help ensure their employees with disabilities can succeed!
The blog will take a straightforward approach to describing possible disability accommodations for hearing-related disabilities: a What that identifies what the accommodation is, and a How to offer insight into how an organization might begin the process of implementing this accommodation. But before we begin, note that the majority of these disability accommodation examples are sourced from the University of Washington’s Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology group (unless otherwise cited), and I highly recommend checking out their site for additional details!
“Hearing-related disabilities” is a capacious category of experiences, and thus I want to highlight that individuals with hearing-related disabilities, be it partial deafness or complete hearing loss, often use a mixture of sign language, lip-reading, and amplification (e.g. hearing aids) to understand spoken communication. Additionally, individuals who have been deaf since birth often—though not always!—experience greater difficulty speaking and understanding the grammatical structure of spoken language than individuals who lost part or all of their hearing later in life. While it is purely up to the discretion of the individual with a hearing-related disability how much they want to share about their disability, it is nonetheless useful for us to keep in mind these distinctions as we move through the following potential accommodations.
Let’s dive right in!
What: Ensure the organization is outfitted with visual warning systems for emergencies.
How: Work with facility services to retrofit and/or update the emergency warning system in the building to ensure individuals with hearing-related disabilities are appropriately notified in the event of an emergency.
What: Consider the auditory qualities of meeting rooms and large events spaces, e.g. to avoid echoing (beneficial for individuals with partial hearing loss as well as hearing people).
How: Work with facility services and individuals with hearing-related disabilities to test the acoustics of locations before selecting them for meetings/events/etc.
What: Provide sign language interpreters for meetings, events, and—where needed—daily work.
How: Work with local deaf/Deaf organizations and communities to hire interpreters, or if the individual with a hearing disability already has an interpreter, be sure to welcome this person to one’s company with respect.
What: Provide captions for all auditory content and, where possible, provide real-time captions for live events (e.g. through automatic captioning softwares).
How: Work with IT and other necessary experts to ensure the organization’s technology is compatible with caption software.
Before I move on to the final potential accommodation in this blog, I want to briefly note that automatic captioning is rarely 100% accurate, meaning if an event is scripted (e.g. if someone is giving a prepared speech), it can be useful to supplement captions with printed handouts! Similarly, in meetings that may use automatic captioning and/or sign language interpreters, individuals with hearing-related disabilities may lag behind in discussion simply because of the translation delay, meaning leaders should make an intentional effort to create opportunities for employees with disabilities to contribute to the conversation as well as regularly repeat important information. Make sense? Excellent—let’s continue!
What: Create a note-taking system for meetings to ensure employees with hearing-related disabilities have a back-up resource for receiving all necessary information (beyond their own presence, captions, interpreters, etc.).
How: Consider creating incentives for employees without hearing-related disabilities to act as note-takers, be they monetary or social (e.g. offering a departmental award).
And remember: we should speak directly to employees with hearing disabilities, not their interpreter, and we should speak to them with a normal volume and speed!
There we have it—five straightforward accommodations for individuals with hearing-related disabilities that any organization can begin working towards today. And remember: when in doubt, ask employees with disabilities what accommodations they need—they know what will aid them best. Wishing you luck with all of your accessibility adventures!
Dima Ghawi is the founder of a global talent development company with a primary mission for advancing individuals in leadership. Through keynote speeches, training programs and executive coaching, Dima has empowered thousands of professionals across the globe to expand their leadership potential. In addition, she provides guidance to business executives to develop diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies and to implement a multi-year plan for advancing quality leaders from within the organization. Reach her at DimaGhawi.com and BreakingVases.com.
