Don’t take chances

IF YOU’VE ever flipped a coin, you probably think that there’s a 50/50 chance of the coin landing on heads or tails. 

After all, a coin only has two sides - it’s not exactly a complex mathematical equation to determine that either side has a 50% chance of landing facing up. 

But as it turns out, this ‘simple’ exercise in probability isn’t as straightforward as you might think. 

This is because everyone who flips a coin introduces just a bit of wobble into the coin every time it’s tossed, which means the coin doesn’t spin perfectly on its axis while it’s in the air. So, the probability of the coin landing on heads or tails isn’t actually 50/50, it’s more like 51/49, with the side that began facing up most likely to wobble its way to victory.

But what does a coin toss have to do with occupational hearing loss?

Historically, risk assessments for noise in the workplace are conducted by specialist “noise assessors.” These professionals will visit a workplace and determine the average levels of noise in a given environment, and offer an estimate of the personal daily noise exposure of employees. Following the assessment, they will offer recommendations and information regarding controls, hearing protection programmes, health surveillance, and PPE.

Essentially, these consultants are playing the odds. They’re making predictions about how workers will experience noise on the job based on general likelihood, not individual workers’ actual exposure. And these predictions are premised upon the idea that workplace noise environments - and the workers who operate within them - behave in static or uniform ways. 

Predictions about exposure to noise in the workplace are premised upon the idea that workplace noise environments - and the workers who operate within them - behave in static or uniform ways. 

But the reality is that workplaces and workers are anything but static, they’re incredibly dynamic, and it’s difficult to estimate with real certainty how much noise a given worker might be exposed to on a given day, during a given task, at a given time. Variables like tool condition and operator competency can impact the amount of noise to which a worker is exposed. The type of hearing protector worn, whether they are properly fitted, and whether a worker actually uses them are additional factors that directly impact how much noise a worker is exposed to during a shift. Even genetics, physiology, age, and gender can play into how a person experiences noise.

And that’s exactly why estimates and averages generated by ‘competent’ risk assessors, without the additional context that comes from personalised, real-time data, are inadequate to fully and certainly assess and address an organisation’s noise environment: They simply don’t reflect the dynamic nature of workplaces and the people who operate within them. 

Said otherwise: They don’t account for the wobble - the unique tendencies, quirks, and irregularities that we as human beings introduce into every single thing that we do. 

Assessing risk

When we engage in occupational risk management, we’re using the information at hand to craft processes, protocols, and programmes that are meant to keep our workers and workplaces safer and healthier. But when the information at hand is inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise unreliable, then it’s likely that our risk management initiatives will be, too. Put simply: an organisation’s plans to control risk in the workplace are only as good as the data and insights that they rely upon to create them.

An organisation’s plans to control risk in the workplace are only as good as the data and insights that they rely upon to create them.

This is why it’s mission-critical for organisations and teams to ensure that the information they’re relying upon to build such programmes is as accurate, reliable, and comprehensive as possible. Guesswork must simply be left out of the equation.

But of course this is easier said than done: Humans are uniquely predisposed to filling in the gaps. Our brains are equipped to take mental shortcuts whenever possible, to use available information (however incomplete or inaccurate) to assess situations quickly, and deduce the most likely outcome. Sometimes, this process produces great results that save time and effort. But sometimes, we make inaccurate predictions because we’re evaluating information or events that don’t accurately forecast future outcomes.

The availability heuristic

This phenomenon has a name: It’s called the “availability heuristic,” and it’s a type of cognitive bias. It’s defined as the “tendency to estimate the probability of something happening based on how many examples readily come to mind.” Put simply: We draw on information we have access to (whether it’s correct or not) to make decisions or predictions quickly. This often results in viewpoints which are biassed and inaccurate. In turn, this can impact whether and to what extent we believe something is problematic, or otherwise worthy of our attention. 

There are many examples of this bias in action: If you were asked which profession is more dangerous between firefighting and garbage collection, you’d probably choose firefighting. Most of us have seen news reports of deadly fires, and we’ve been educated our entire lives about fire safety. But statistically speaking, it’s actually more dangerous to be a garbage collector. But since most of us have never heard about the dangers of working as a garbage collector, this information simply isn’t available to us when we rack our brain to make a selection about which is the more dangerous profession. 

If you were asked which profession is more dangerous between firefighting and garbage collection, you’d probably choose firefighting. But statistically speaking, it’s actually more dangerous to be a garbage collector.

The availability heuristic has unique applications in risk assessment because we use it, often without thinking, as a mental shortcut to quickly determine the risk of a given activity or situation. For example: if you operate in a working environment where you’ve never seen someone have a forklift accident, you may tend to think that operating a forklift is a relatively straightforward and safe job. In reality, forklift accidents kill 27 people every year in the UK alone. That’s one worker every 13 days. If you allowed your bias about forklift safety to inform how you behaved at work, the results could be devastating. 

When it comes to our occupational noise environment, this bias can easily take hold and result in uninformed and unsafe decision-making. This is partly because Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) is a cumulative condition that slowly appears over time. And if you or your coworkers aren’t experiencing or observing the acute effects of NIHL, it’s likely that you’ll underestimate its prevalence, and its severity. A worker or manager might think something along the lines of: “I don’t know anyone with hearing problems, it can’t be that big of an issue.” As a result, no meaningful action is taken to address noise monitoring and management at work.

If you or your coworkers aren’t experiencing or observing the acute effects of NIHL, it’s likely that you’ll underestimate its prevalence, and its severity.

But of course, we know that occupational hearing loss is a pervasive health and safety issue. A staggering 1.1 billion people around the world suffer from NIHL, and nearly one-fifth of disabling hearing loss worldwide is attributable to the condition. In fact, in the UK alone, the HSE estimates that two million workers are exposed to potentially unsafe levels of noise at work. Even if workers aren’t being exposed to it on a daily basis, NIHL is a widespread and potentially devastating condition. 

Fortunately, it’s also entirely preventable. 

Modern solutions

For organisations looking to simplify, streamline, and ultimately improve their approach to occupational noise monitoring, the goal should be to reduce or eliminate uncertainty.

To accomplish this, organisations must augment their risk assessments by adding layers of context and personalisation to their workplace noise data. By doing this, they will finally have access to a complete set of information that they can use for better decision-making. And with this additional layer of insight, teams will be in a position to eliminate bias and inaccuracy from their approach to occupational noise monitoring. 

With a purpose-built noise monitoring solution, organisations can rest assured that every single worker on their team is protected, not just those who happen to be exposed to an amount of noise that aligns with third-party estimates. 

With a purpose-built noise monitoring solution, organisations can rest assured that every single worker on their team is protected, not just those who happen to be consistently exposed to an amount of noise that aligns with third-party estimates provided after an eight-hour site visit.

Monitoring without guesswork

Smart Alert by Minuendo is a purpose-built solution for better sound monitoring in the workplace. Lightweight and easy to use, it was created to fully prevent exposure to unsafe levels of noise by alerting workers, in real-time, to unsafe conditions. With automatic notifications and actionable guidance on exposure, Smart Alert provides workers and teams with drilled-down insights and critical context in an approachable interface that’s proven to drive better working habits.

Using cutting-edge, industry-defining technology, Smart Alert continuously measures an individual workers’ exposure to noise from inside the ear. This means that the noise being measured by Smart Alert is the actual noise that someone is being exposed to, and not simply a measure of ambient or background noise. This is a critical distinction between the Smart Alert methodology and traditional noise assessments which can only estimate personal exposure based on a calculation of the average amount of ambient noise that exists in a workplace. 

Said simply: Smart Alert accounts for the wobble: Operator competency, tool condition, the fit and effectiveness of someone’s PPE, and more. And by doing this, Smart Alert is making crucial information available to workers, duty holders, and Safety Managers: Information that they can use to assess or address their risk environment, instead of relying on guesswork. 

Gambling with your workers’ hearing health is an all-but guaranteed way to ensure less positive health outcomes for employees. 

When it comes to effective noise monitoring, the only way to ensure that your approach is effective is to stop playing the odds, and start relying on accurate, personalised, real-time data to drive superior decision-making that’s proven to better protect workers from irreversible damage to their hearing. 

Your workers’ health and safety shouldn’t be left to chance.

Neal Muggleton is chief operating officer at Minuendo. For more information, visit www.minuendo.com/smart-alert