Excessive noise over a long period of time will damage your hearing. Noise above 85 decibels (about the level of noise generated by particularly heavy traffic) is considered harmful if exposed to for a long period of time. Such damage is gradual, but permanent. You may not even notice it at first but when you do, you’ll have to live with it for the rest of your life. Those who work on construction sites and areas where loud tools are used are most obviously at risk but noise pollution can easily occur in offices or even retail environments too. Here are few ways you can properly deal with noise pollution in the workplace.
1. Who you gonna call?
If you’re going home every day with your ears ringing or your hearing sounding muffled, then you are being exposed to too much noise during the day and your employer is putting you in danger. If you believe this to be the case, speak to your Occupational Health & Safety officer about arranging a professional noise assessment to be performed at your workplace. Organisations like ANE specialise in performing such tests and will be able to run a number of tests with reliable equipment to tell you for sure whether the level of noise in your workplace or on your worksite is doing the staff harm.
2. Timing is everything
If your workplace frequently works with heavy or especially noisy machinery, arrange for it to be run early in the morning or later in the afternoon. This will ensure that only the bare minimum of people are exposed to that level of noise and arrange proper hearing protection (like ear muffs or ear plugs) for those people during those times of the day. In the event that the conducting of nosier work cannot be completed during less populated hours, steps should to be taken to ensure that staff are protected during noisier times. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this is to have the business soundproof any affected rooms in order to shut the noise out – expensive, yes, but decidedly cheaper than a compensation claim for a lifetime of ruined hearing.
3. A quiet word
If simply soundproofing every room in the building isn’t an option, then you should speak to management about finding quieter places for people to work during peak noise times. Even if there’s a rotation of people going from noisier to quieter areas throughout the day, at least they aren’t being exposed to it for the full eight-hour work day. It might be machinery making the noise, however. If especially old equipment is becoming deafening with age, speak to OH&S or management about replacing the offending equipment with newer or quieter models.
These are just three ways you can deal with noise pollution in your workplace. Every workplace is different however, and as such will present vastly different challenges and problems. Someone playing the radio too loudly in the office is not the same thing as having someone run a concrete saw five feet away from your unmuffled ears, but both can cause permanent hearing damage if unaddressed. How have you tackled noise pollution in the workplace? Sound off in the comments!
