Research led by 91ÑÇÉ« Associate Professor Brent Lyons argues that better understanding the diversity of hearing disabilities could help employers improve accommodations, reduce workplace barriers and unlock employees' full potential.
More than 1.5 billion people worldwide live with a hearing disability, a number projected to rise significantly in the coming decades as the workforce ages. Yet many workplaces remain poorly equipped to understand or address the challenges employees with hearing disabilities face every day.
Lyons of the researches hearing diversity and workplace inclusion. He also has lived experience with hearing disabilities and says many organizations continue to overlook an important reality.
"Hearing disabilities are often misunderstood and treated as a single, uniform experience. In fact, they are quite diverse," says Lyons.
When employers fail to recognize that variation, well-intentioned efforts to support workers can fall short.
"Without recognizing this diversity, this can lead to ineffective accommodations, communication barriers, stigma and missed opportunities for employees with hearing disabilities to contribute their skills and expertise."
Lyons wanted to draw attention to the reality that these workers do not all experience the workplace in the same way. To that end, he partnered with David Baldridge of Oregon State University, another researcher with lived experience of hearing disability and years of experience studying its effects on employment. Together, they authored a paper, now published in Organizational Dynamics, that explores hearing diversity in the workplace and outlines practical, research-informed strategies for creating more inclusive work environments.
To inform the paper, Lyons and Baldridge reviewed research from a range of disciplines, including hearing science, audiology, disability studies and human resource management. They combined those findings with their own work and lived experience to identify common themes across the literature, including workplace obstacles, barriers to inclusion and strategies shown to support communication.
The scholars identified a range of recurring obstacles, from difficult-to-follow meetings and noisy work environments to conversation breakdowns and reluctance to seek accommodations. They also found that hearing experiences are far more diverse than many people realize, with employees differing in their hearing experiences as well as the communication tools and strategies they rely on.
The review further highlighted how everyday activities can become hurdles. Meetings, telephone calls, conferences, social events, work travel and even hiring processes can present obstacles for employees with hearing disabilities. Hybrid meetings can be particularly difficult because participants may struggle to see and hear everyone clearly, while social gatherings often take place in noisy environments that make conversations harder to follow.
One finding that Lyons believes receives too little attention was feels does not receive enough attention: how much mental energy people with hearing disabilities often devote to following everyday conversations, and how frequently that burden is underestimated by both others and the individuals experiencing it.
"The extensive effort that goes into keeping up with everyday conversations can be invisible to others," Lyons says.
The researchers also drew a distinction between hearing and understanding. Employees with hearing disabilities may catch parts of a conversation while missing others, particularly in noisy settings. That can make it difficult for staff to know when important information has been missed or misunderstood, helping explain why everyday interactions can require so much mental effort.
But documenting those challenges was only part of what the researchers set out to do. Recognizing the diversity of hearing experiences, Lyons and Baldridge sought to provide practical, evidence-based guidance that organizations can adapt to individual workers’ needs and create more inclusive workplaces.
Among their recommendations is making accessibility part of everyday practice rather than treating it as a special accommodation. Simple measures such as enabling captions, sharing written agendas and meeting summaries, encouraging one person to speak at a time and reducing background noise can make interactions easier for many employees. The authors also stress the importance of regular conversations between managers and team members about communication needs, recognizing that hearing experiences can vary widely from person to person and even from day to day.
More broadly, the researchers advocate a layered approach that combines accessible workplace design, supportive management practices and appropriate technologies, including captioning services, remote microphones and sign-language interpretation where needed. While emerging tools such as AI-powered captioning and speech-to-text services offer new opportunities to improve accessibility, Lyons and Baldridge say technology alone is not enough. Meaningful progress, they argue, comes from recognizing hearing diversity and building accessibility into everyday workplace interactions.
"We hope this work helps organizations move beyond generic accommodations toward more individualized, inclusive practices, while empowering people with hearing disabilities to share their own experiences and advocate for their communication needs," Lyons says.