To help you stop this happening in your work place.

Acoustic Safety Programme
Training, Equipment Testing and Campaign announcements, Autumn 2007.

Here at O2 we work hard to provide our people with the best in work space design, proven technology and personal support. We recognise that to operate award winning customer service and support centres across the UK it is imperative to provide and maintain a safe and healthy working environment. One of these initiatives has been to implement a hearing conservation programme across all our call centres.

This has been achieved implementing a version of the ‘Sound Safety II’ e-learning training course developed by the World’s leading specialist hearing health and safety organisation, the Acoustic Safety Programme. The course is available to all UK employees via our internal learning management system and ensures that all our call centre advisers have the most thorough hearing conservation support possible, helping us meet the HSE’s acoustic safety guidelines and the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005”.

Chris Jacobs, Head of Health Safety and the Environment O2 (UK)

Training staff on occupational hazards is a legal requirement. HSE makes a specific statement on acoustic shock, as follows: "...Operators should be trained to recognise such incidents and how to report them...Organisations that operate call centres should follow this advice and keep up to date with developments in this field..."
For the full HSE statement please click this link
Robert Vaughan, HSE, Noise and Vibration Programme Manager 31st August 2006

Since 2006, according to ASP and Industry Association surveys, only approximately 10% of UK employers of call centre staff have trained their staff on health & safety issues concerning hearing injury and hearing conservation.

The Acoustic Safety Programme health & safety and medical specialists have now completed Version II of the 'Sound Safety' e-learning course for telephony and headset users. 'Sound Safety Version I' focused on acoustic shock and safety, so it seemed obvious to us that 'Sound Safety Version II' should go further into the general issues concerning Noise at Work, Hearing Conservation and Personal as well as Corporate Responsibility. We have ensured that the new course includes all Version 1 content and were delighted to have received 4 Stars out of 4 for content and presentation from 'Health and Safety at Work Magazine'. We would like to thank 'GN in association with BT' who recognise the high quality of our training course and its value to industry, and who extended their support to allow us to complete the next module. You can request a course review pass by emailing info@acousticsafety.org and quoting "Sound Safety Version II course review pass request."  The cost of a course licence varies from £3/user for large groups to £12/user (+vat) for small groups. The course and test results can be managed on ASP's Learning Management System or by arrangement on a new LMS which can be sourced from Atlantic Link, our e-learning partners, or on an existing server.

We are delighted to announce that the Comparative Test Report on in-line devices for call centre and office environments will be available to ‘Acoustic Safety Industry Forum’ members as of March 2008. Please email info@acousticsafety.org to receive membership terms and benefits. The ASP Telephony Equipment Testing Suite is recognised as the leading independent test for acoustics measurement on call centre telephony equipment by leading equipment manufacturers, Industry employers, Government, Unions and Industry Associations.

Please review our testing programme and products to be tested on this part of our website: http://www.acousticsafety.org/?id=antestprog-sample

For further information and Document download click here.