EEOC Updates Employer Guidance on Hearing Impaired Workers 

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently updated its guidance on how the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to job applicants and employees who are hearing impaired, including what accommodations are needed in workplaces increasingly utilizing video conferencing. 

The document, Hearing Disabilities in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act, outlines how certain pre- and post-job offer disability-related questions can violate the ADA, and describes easy-to-access low-cost technologies that satisfy the ADA’s “reasonable accommodation” provision for hearing disabled workers.  

The guidance document also addresses employer concerns about safety and shares realistic examples of potential discrimination. 

The guidance explains, for example, that an employer that uses videoconferencing may need to provide a service that translates voice into text at real-time speeds as an ADA accommodation.  

Employers should ask the employee what accommodation is needed that will help the employee do the job. 

There are extensive public and private resources to help employers identify reasonable accommodations. For example, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is a free, confidential service that provides information about many types of accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities based on the needs of a given individual and workplace, the EEOC said. 

The latest EEOC announcement followed two enforcement actions taken during January in cases involving employees with hearing disabilities.