The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has long been tasked with monitoring noise levels and implementing hearing conservation programs in industries riddled with loud noise exposure, such as transit, factory, and construction workers. It requires the implementation of a hearing conservation program when the average noise level over an 8-hour period is 85dB or more and focuses primarily on places with environmental noise exposure.

In other words, OSHA most tightly regulates workplaces when the noise is inescapable and inherent to the job.

But what OSHA fails to recognize is the growing number of workers, remote or in person, with self-inflicted noise exposure: people who listen to meetings all day over headsets, who must join numerous video conferencing calls, or who work in an open concept office with a high degree of ambient noise.

This sector of the workforce has gone largely unregulated because there is no reason the noise should be so incessant; contrary to railroad or factory workers, this noise is escapable.

In the modern workforce, white-collar office jobs can easily exceed the 85dB average noise level over an eight-hour workday: iPhones are capable of reaching 110dB output and laptops can reach up to 80 dB.

While these outputs are largely unnecessary, how many people actually put these devices to full volume, and, if so, for how many meetings? Before you know it, your office workers’ ears aren’t that different from those of construction workers.

With Tuned, you give your employees the education they need to make the right choices in conserving one’s hearing. Whether it is hearing protection, communication strategies, or acoustical modifications to the office, we’ll keep your employees’ ears safe. Noise is noise, after all. To your ears, it doesn’t matter if it is music, a meeting, or the screeching of a train car.

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