What to do if someone refuses to wear hearing protection.
In a noise assessment, it is common to hear a comment along the lines of ‘we’ve given them hearing protection and told them to wear it, so what else can we do’, but that is not the end of the employer’s obligations for hearing protection. They have to:
Ensure it is suitable for the noise risk via the noise assessment
Issue it to everyone
Have a choice of styles available as not everyone will be able to wear the same thing. (E.g. some people do genuinely have smaller ear canals or more cat’s eye shaped ones so a round silicone plug may simply not fit).
Tell people where it needs to be worn.
Have signs saying where it needs to be worn.
But then also:
Monitor its usage to ensure it is indeed being worn and being worn correctly.
Enforce it’s usage
Take action where people are found not to be wearing it.
If they are in a high noise area then not wearing it is not an option, no matter what the issue.
If they don’t like it, that doesn’t remove the need to wear it.
If it causes pain, that doesn’t remove the need to wear it.
If someone says they cannot wear hearing protection there are some steps to be followed:
Try different styles. If a silicone ear plug causes pain, try a foam one or ear muffs.
If there is no hearing protection which they say they can wear, they must be removed from the risk which means moving them to a job where there is no noise risk.
If there is no such low-noise job available, the unfortunate position is that they still cannot work in the high noise area without hearing protection, and as there are no other jobs, terminating employment is the only option.
