Charity urges employers to become hearing loss confident

Posted on Friday 1 January 2010

Charity Action on Hearing Loss has published a new report which reveals that almost one in three businesses would not feel confident employing someone with hearing loss.

James Rowe, executive director of commercial services, said: “Our Working for Change report has found that employers and businesses are woefully unprepared for employing people with hearing loss, with an endemic lack of awareness of help and support available. This lack of awareness is making some fearful of employing people with hearing loss in case they do something wrong and risk breaching the Equality Act (or Disability Discrimination Act in Northern Ireland).”

The YouGov poll conducted for the charity also found that over half of respondents (57%) say there is a lack of support or advice available for organisations when recruiting someone with hearing loss.

James continued: “That almost two-thirds of business leaders had never heard of the Government’s publicly funded Access to Work scheme is a real concern. We want to help businesses make the necessary adaptions to ensure that not only are they compliant with the Equality Act, but are benefiting from the huge value employees with hearing loss can offer.

“With 11 million people living in the UK with hearing loss – a number set to rise to 15.6 million by 2035 – it makes good business sense for employers to become as inclusive as possible.”
www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/wba