Certainly we can all get behind the concept of conserving workers’ hearing when on the job site.

After all, none of our supervisors would want to raise their voices or talk more slowly in order for a worker to hear us – especially if that worker is only in his 20s or 30s.

Hearing loss, as many of us can imagine, can be devastating to a person’s personal relationships, standard of life and overall dignity, not to mention the potential physical damage to the ears should there not be adequate protection in areas with high ambient noise levels.

HPD by darkbuffet

[Image courtesy of Flickr user darkbuffet via a Creative Commons license]

Donald Garvey wrote extensively in an article specifically about noise conservation in the September 2015 issue of Professional Safety magazine, and I have been breaking it down in several recent posts. The last major segment of Garvey’s article will be covered today – having to do with training.

Training the Ears’ Owners

Hearing protection or conservation is of course about the proper use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) and learning the right fit to make them comfortable enough for workers to wear them for longer periods of time, but Garvey writes that it’s much more than that.

It’s about training – not just proper choice and use of HPDs themselves, but also behavior of the workers.

Wearing HPDs is a behavior mechanism, and often workers have to undergo a behavioral change in order to be better at wearing HPDs on the worksite. For more experienced construction workers, this would be a little more difficult, but it is possible for those who are new to the work, to instill proper safety behavior before it needs to be changed.

Garvey acknowledges that hearing-protection training is already not very prevalent in the construction industry in general, but even those trainings that are available do not cover all of the essentials to hearing safety. One aspect in particular that he contends needs to be available to all workers is providing motivation to encourage consistent use of HPDs on the worksite.

5 Factors that Drive HPD Use

Garvey brings home the point about behavioral change as part of hearing-prevention training simply because HPD use is not usually a natural thing for workers. You can train workers all day about the effects of excessive noise, choosing a proper HPD and get into noise-reduction ratings (NRRs), but ultimately wearing an HPD takes a behavior change in order to do it consistently.

Garvey points out five important factors that can be determined in consistent or inconsistent use of these devices:

  1. Confidence. A worker can learn benefits and risks with using an HPD, but if he or she does not have confidence in the ability to put on an HPD in the first place, none of the rest of it matters. They have to know it’s easy and convenient to use an HPD first and foremost.
  2. Cons. Does the behavior have negative aspects, or at least perceived as such?
  3. Pros. What are the benefits of doing this behavior of using HPDs consistently?
  4. Control. Workers like to know that they are still in control of their personal health and safety. Training them in how HPD use can enhance their control and their ability to stay safe and healthy can be a big motivator for behavior.
  5. Value. How important is it for a worker to use an HPD on the worksite? If a worker understands this concept – the positive value of changing a behavior – he or she would be likely to be amenable to behavior change.

Understanding that putting on equipment is a behavior modification issue and not just an education or training issue, will go a long way to ward establishing a strong safety culture in your worklace, and especially on a construction site. Just as working on a roof or on a foundation is about behavior, wearing an HPD while on the job can also be taughty, learned, and understood as an effective and safe behavior for workers, lessening risl of future health problems.