Setting Up Training Sessions
Management must emphasize the importance of the educational phase of the hearing conservation program by setting a high priority on and requiring attendance at regular hearing loss prevention training sessions. Training sessions should be mandatory not only for noise-exposed employees, but also for the supervisors and managers responsible for noisy production areas. A manager should participate in each employee training session to outline company policies and to explain and model the company's commitment to the hearing conservation program. The training program should consist of more than films and pamphlets. It must be tailored to the company's particular hearing loss prevention needs, and should include live presentations by articulate and knowledgeable speakers and hands-on practice sessions with hearing protectors.
Hearing loss prevention presentations should be updated and presented at least annually or more frequently if there is a significant turnover in employees. In addition to training sessions focused specifically on hearing loss prevention, management should also require the inclusion of hearing health topics in regularly-scheduled general safety meetings. These general meetings may be brief "reminder" meetings held weekly or monthly that also serve to inform workers about progress made toward meeting the goals of the company's various safety programs. In this way, hearing health will become an integrated part of the overall health and safety climate of the workplace.
Management should make sure that the hearing conservation program's staff (audiometric technicians, hearing-hazard assessors, noise control experts, those who fit and issue hearing protection devices, and supervisors) have received detailed instructions in hearing loss prevention so that they are qualified to lead employee training sessions and comfortable with answering employees' questions. Individuals who make the main presentations in the formal educational programs must be carefully selected to project genuine interest in the employees' welfare, and they must be speakers capable of gaining the employees' attention and respect. Peers can be particularly influential, and should be utilized whenever possible.