Time to ‘break the silence’ on deaf workers

Human resources expert Sue Tumelty has called for Britain’s 12 million deaf and hard of hearing adults to receive more support overcoming challenges in the workplace.

The founder and executive director of advice agency HR Dept wrote in HR Magazine that it is easy to overlook “the enormous efforts deaf people make to communicate”. She called for more employers to make reasonable adjustments, as required under the 2010 Equality Act, such as changing the layout of a meeting room, using good lighting, and employing loops to transmit sound directly into hearing aids.

“We all want to be heard and understood,” she said. “When we take action to make the lives of colleagues with hearing disabilities easier, we break the sound barrier – we create a genuinely inclusive workplace for everyone.”