Try these tips for navigating work meetings with hearing loss.
Hearing loss can make participating in work meetings and conferences a challenge. It’s not always easy to follow conversations in a large room or a presentation with multiple speakers. With advanced planning, you can help mitigate some of the workplace barriers to communication, and help increase the opportunity to participate fully in office meetings.
Here are six tips for managing hearing loss at work meetings:
- Arrive early
- Choose your seat thoughtfully
- Ask for written notes
- Bring an assistive listening device
- Try a speech-to-text app
- Ask for support
Let’s explore how to implement these tips in your meeting schedule.
Arrive early
Try to arrive early to meetings and conferences so that you can get yourself situated. If there’s a planned speaker or presenter who you haven’t met before, introduce yourself and, if you are comfortable, let them know you have hearing loss. Explain to them how they can help you best as they present. This way, the speaker can be aware of your communication preferences and make sure to enunciate their words clearly or use a microphone if they’re speaking in a large room. If you use a hearing device with a directed microphone, this gives you time to set up the microphone for the speaker and discuss its use.
Choose your seat thoughtfully
When attending meetings or conferences, it is important to sit where you can clearly see the speakers. This way, you can better read their lips and facial expressions to help understand what they’re saying.
If you’re attending a round-table meeting with people you know, try to sit next to or across from the people you expect will be difficult to hear, giving yourself a good line of sight. In an auditorium setting, consider sitting closer to the front of the room. Be on the lookout for potential sources of background noise, like air conditioners or whirring electronics, so you aren’t positioned near potential auditory distractions.
Ask for written notes
Some presenters may be able to provide written notes if you ask ahead of time. This gives you a good sense of what’s being discussed and reinforces the information that you hear throughout the presentation.
Alternatively, some larger companies may have designated note-takers who record what’s being discussed during meetings, so you could request a copy of these to review after the meeting concludes.
Bring an assistive listening device
If you use a hearing aid, you can sync it up with a personal amplification device (such as a wireless clip-on microphone) to help you better hear in conferences and meetings. If the room is equipped for it, you may also be able to connect your hearing aid to the installed loop system. These devices funnel sound right to your ears, allowing you to better understand speech without distractions.
Try a speech-to-text app
In small meetings, it might be helpful to put your mobile phone in a central location and use a speech-to-text app to pick up the various speakers and transcribe the conversation. There are some free speech-to-text apps, but you may want to ask your company to invest in a subscription as part of providing employees with accessible tools. A few of these applications, like Otter, are specifically designed with meetings in mind and can even distinguish between speakers.
Ask for support
If you’re still facing challenges hearing during meetings, don’t be afraid to ask for additional support. Be an advocate for your own hearing requirements. Your co-workers want to ensure effective communication with you as well. Request an agenda at the start of the meeting to follow along with. Enlist a colleague to help confirm any information you may miss. Remind teammates to face you directly and refrain from looking down or blocking their mouths when speaking. Discussing your communication needs in work meetings can be a positive way to start a conversation about additional support and assistance that could benefit you and your coworkers.
For more specialized professional advice, reach out to your audiologist to get recommendations on ways to best manage your hearing loss at work. (If you don’t have an audiologist yet, try our tips for choosing one!)
With the right plan in place, you set yourself up to be better able to participate fully in work meetings. Next, explore these tools and devices that can also help with managing hearing loss at work.
