Posted By tomahawk
There seems to be a growing number of staff in our offices wearing earphones all day and listening to music while they work. It seems to be the sort of thing you could really make a big issue out of if you wanted to, so I just wanted to sound out opinions on what other companies do about it. I'm fairly sure it doesn't interfere with work (you could argue it helps worker productivity and stress), I don't think in all honesty that it prevents them hearing fire alarms or warnings etc but just think we are open to claims for hearing damage if we don't stop it or issue warnings. Any views or experiences please ?

Posted By Bob Shillabeer
You raise an interesting point. How does the employer know that the use of ipods is not affecting worker productivity or even helping it, has this been reserached? I work in an office and some peole do use Ipods when working generally when they need to work uninterupted, but they do not have the volume up.

Generally though I would refrain thier use as it often causes distraction and some talks nee quite high levels of consentration. The answer id to risk assess thier use properly and then dicide if they may be used.