Hearing disability often needs special adaptations to guarantee the accessibility and comfort of the person, ensuring that, even having a hearing impairment, barriers aren't present, and all the needed activities can be executed by the person.
Some accommodations for facilitating the inclusion of hearing-impaired stakeholders include adding subtitles to videos in conferences, accommodating the person in a quiet office where noise doesn't disturb them if they use hearing aid devices, and avoiding elements that cover the mouth (scarves, beards, etc.) to allow lipreading.
What are the best practices for hearing accessibility you have observed in your enterprise? Saving Changes...
One thing that has worked well in my workplace is offering real time captioning during meetings and making sure agendas and summaries are shared in writing. Clear mask options for in person discussions also help a lot with lipreading.
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1 reply by Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
Nov 19, 2025 11:04 AM
Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
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Good advice, Dortha. Clear masks are particularly helpful for individuals with hearing disabilities who rely on lipreading.
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
One practice I’ve seen work well is designing communication to be multi-modal by default, written, visual, and verbal, so no one has to ask for accommodations after the fact. In my teams, we’ve used real-time captioning in meetings, shared meeting notes immediately, and kept background noise to a minimum during hybrid calls. Small habits like speaking clearly, facing the person, or using chat for key points also make a big difference. When inclusion is built into the workflow, accessibility stops being an exception and becomes part of how the team operates.
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1 reply by Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
Jan 22, 2026 12:08 PM
Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
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Excellent recommendations, Indira. Acts like speaking clearly, facing the person, and using written communication for important points are particularly helpful for persons with hearing disabilities. The suggestion about reducing noisy backgrounds is also crucial, as noise affects the effectiveness of perceiving sound with hearing aids or cochlear implants.
I do not have hands-on experience working with individuals who have hearing impairments. However, while working on a project in Japan where both the client and partner had limited English skills, my consulting team relied on translators for communication. To facilitate this process, my team and I established ground rules that I believe could be helpful when managing a project with individuals with hearing impairments.
An example of the ground rules (when working on the project in Japan):
-Speak clearly and naturally
-Speak at a steady pace and pause between ideas.
-Maintain eye contact and keep your mouth visible.
-Avoid talking while turning away, walking around, or looking at screens.
-Close doors, mute notifications.
-Summaries on slides, shared notes, agendas, written instructions.
-Arrange seating so the person can see all speakers
-Share materials in advance
-Always turn on captions for video meetings (MS Teams)
-Use captioned videos and accessible formats.
-Allow more time for responses.
-Avoid interrupting or finishing sentences.
-Speak into the microphone
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1 reply by Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
Nov 20, 2025 9:18 AM
Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
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What a set of insightful recommendations, Maria. The inclusion of team members with hearing disability, or others, is fundamental and should be a priority for the Project Manager.
Globally, over 1.5 billion people experience hearing loss, with 430 million having disabling hearing loss. In enterprises, best practices include real-time captions for meetings and videos, quiet workspaces for hearing aid users, visible faces for lip-reading, and visual alerts for notifications. Studies show these measures improve productivity, inclusion, and employee satisfaction. Saving Changes...
I haven’t had the opportunity to work with individuals with hearing disabilities, so this questions and provided answers could be very insightful for me. Saving Changes...
One thing that has worked well in my workplace is offering real time captioning during meetings and making sure agendas and summaries are shared in writing. Clear mask options for in person discussions also help a lot with lipreading.
Good advice, Dortha. Clear masks are particularly helpful for individuals with hearing disabilities who rely on lipreading. Saving Changes...
I do not have hands-on experience working with individuals who have hearing impairments. However, while working on a project in Japan where both the client and partner had limited English skills, my consulting team relied on translators for communication. To facilitate this process, my team and I established ground rules that I believe could be helpful when managing a project with individuals with hearing impairments.
An example of the ground rules (when working on the project in Japan):
-Speak clearly and naturally
-Speak at a steady pace and pause between ideas.
-Maintain eye contact and keep your mouth visible.
-Avoid talking while turning away, walking around, or looking at screens.
-Close doors, mute notifications.
-Summaries on slides, shared notes, agendas, written instructions.
-Arrange seating so the person can see all speakers
-Share materials in advance
-Always turn on captions for video meetings (MS Teams)
-Use captioned videos and accessible formats.
-Allow more time for responses.
-Avoid interrupting or finishing sentences.
-Speak into the microphone
What a set of insightful recommendations, Maria. The inclusion of team members with hearing disability, or others, is fundamental and should be a priority for the Project Manager. Saving Changes...
One practice I’ve seen work well is designing communication to be multi-modal by default, written, visual, and verbal, so no one has to ask for accommodations after the fact. In my teams, we’ve used real-time captioning in meetings, shared meeting notes immediately, and kept background noise to a minimum during hybrid calls. Small habits like speaking clearly, facing the person, or using chat for key points also make a big difference. When inclusion is built into the workflow, accessibility stops being an exception and becomes part of how the team operates.
Excellent recommendations, Indira. Acts like speaking clearly, facing the person, and using written communication for important points are particularly helpful for persons with hearing disabilities. The suggestion about reducing noisy backgrounds is also crucial, as noise affects the effectiveness of perceiving sound with hearing aids or cochlear implants. Saving Changes...
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