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 considered for a job and a number of individuals from your company have gathered on a conference call. All of the various voices get a bit muddled and hard to understand. But you’re pretty sure you got the gist of it.
Turning up the speaker just makes it sound more distorted. So you simply do your best, reading between the lines. You’re really good at that.
As you try to listen, the voices sound particularly muffled for around a minute. Then suddenly you hear, “so what can your company do to help us with this”?”
You panic. You didn’t hear the last few minutes and aren’t sure what issue they’re attempting to resolve. This is your contract and your boss is counting on you. What can you do?
Should you acknowledge you didn’t hear them and ask them to reprise what they said? They’ll think you were distracted. Do you begin using a lot of sales jargon? No, that will be too obvious.
Every single day, people everywhere go through situations like this while working. Sometimes, they try to pretend they’re okay and wing it.
So in general, how is your work being impacted by your hearing loss? Let’s see.
Unequal pay
A representative sampling of 80,000 individuals was collected by The Better Hearing Institute utilizing the same technique that the Census Bureau uses.
People who have neglected hearing loss earn, on average, $12,000 less per year.
Hey, that’s not fair!
We could dig deep to attempt to find out what the cause is, but as the illustration above demonstrates, hearing loss can impact your general performance. The deal couldn’t be closed, regrettably. When they thought that the salesperson wasn’t listening to them, they went with someone else. They didn’t want to work with a firm that doesn’t listen.
His commission on this deal would have been over $1000.
It was only a misunderstanding. But how do you think this impacted his career? How might things have been different if he were using his hearing aids?
On the Job Injuries
A study revealed in the Journal of The American Medical Association discovered that people with untreated hearing loss are nearly 30% more likely to suffer a serious work accident. And, your danger of ending up in the emergency room after a serious fall goes up by 300% according to other research.
And individuals with only slight hearing loss were at the highest risk, unexpectedly! Maybe, their hearing loss is mild enough that they’re not even aware of it.
How to have a successful career with hearing loss
You have a lot to offer an employer:
- Empathy
- Confidence
- Experience
- Personality
- Skills
Hearing loss shouldn’t overshadow these. But it is frequently a factor. You might not even realize how huge an effect on your job it’s having. Here are a few ways to decrease that impact:
- Write a respectful accommodations letter to your boss. This way, you have it in writing.
- Asking for a written outline/agenda before a meeting. Conversations will be easier to follow.
- Understand that during a job interview, you aren’t required to divulge that you have hearing loss. And the interviewer can’t ask. Conversely, you may need to consider if your neglected hearing loss will impact your ability to have a successful interview. You will probably need to inform the interviewer of your condition if that’s the situation.
- When you’re speaking with people, make sure you face them. Try not to have phone conversations as much as you can.
- Request that you get a hearing aid compatible (HAC) phone. The sound doesn’t go through background noise but instead goes directly into your ear. You will need hearing aids that are compatible with this technology to use one.
- Be certain your work area is brightly lit. Seeing lips can help you follow along even if you don’t read lips.
- Never overlook wearing your hearing aids at work and all of the rest of the time. When you do, lots of of the accommodations aren’t necessary.
- If a job is going to surpass your capability you need to speak up. For instance, your boss might ask you to cover for someone who works in a noisy area. Offer to do a different job to make up for it. By doing that, your boss won’t think you’re just trying to get out of doing work.
Hearing loss at work
Hearing loss can impact your work, even if it’s minor. But having it treated will frequently get rid of any barriers you face with neglected hearing loss. Give us a call right away – we can help!