Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How One Company Made Hearing Loss a Career Asset
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've done a bunch of episodes about how companies build career ladders around specific disabilities or traits — ADHD, dyslexia, introversion, stuttering. But there's one category we haven't touched yet, and it's actually one of the most common workplace disabilities in the United States. Luna: Let me guess — hearing loss? Lucas: Exactly. According to the National Institute on Deafness, roughly 15 percent of American adults report some trouble hearing. That's about 37.5 million people. And yet most companies treat hearing accommodations as a compliance checkbox — a headset amplifier or a captioning service, done. Luna: Right — the bare minimum. But you found a company that went the other direction? Lucas: I did. It's called Midwest Components. They're a precision metal stamping and assembly plant in western Ohio — about 800 employees. And they've built what might be the most intentional career ladder for deaf and hard of hearing talent I've seen in any industry, let alone manufacturing. Luna: Manufacturing is interesting because the environment itself is loud. That's usually a barrier for people with hearing loss — it amplifies the challenge. Lucas: That's the conventional thinking. But Midwest Components discovered the opposite. Their plant floor runs presses and stamping machines that hit 95 to 105 decibels — that's well above the OSHA threshold where hearing protection is mandatory. Every employee wears earplugs or earmuffs. So in that environment, everybody — hearing or not — is working with reduced auditory input. Luna: So suddenly the playing field levels. If everyone's hearing is dampened, then the deaf employee isn't at a disadvantage — they might even have an edge because they're already used to communicating without sound. Lucas: That's exactly what the plant manager told me. He said the deaf employees on their line were consistently faster at noticing visual cues — flashing lights on a control panel, a hand signal from a supervisor, a vibration in the floor from a nearby machine — because they were trained to monitor those signals full-time, not as a backup to audio. Luna: Did they have data on that? Or is it more of an anecdotal observation? Lucas: They actually tracked it. Over a three-year period, the deaf and hard of hearing workers on the floor had a 23 percent lower incident rate for osha reportable injuries compared to their hearing peers. The plant manager said that surprised even him. Luna: Twenty-three percent lower? That's significant. And it runs counter to the stereotype that deaf workers are at higher risk because they can't hear alarms. Lucas: Right. But Midwest Components didn't just leave it at 'hey, these employees are safer.' They redesigned their entire communication system around what worked for their deaf talent. Instead of expecting deaf employees to adapt to a hearing-centric workplace, they made the deaf-friendly approach the default. Luna: What did that look like? Specific changes. Lucas: First, they replaced audio-only alarms with strobe lights and vibrating pagers — the kind you'd see in a restaurant for customers. Every workstation got a light panel: green for normal operation, yellow for slowdown, red for emergency stop. Second, they introduced a visual kanban system for inventory — colored cards and digital boards instead of intercom calls. Third, they embedded sign language into their supervisory training. Luna: Sign language for hearing supervisors. That's a big investment. Lucas: It is. But they didn't stop at supervisors. They offered voluntary American Sign Language classes to any employee on the clock — one hour a week, paid. Around 40 percent of the plant floor took at least the introductory module. The plant manager told me it changed the culture. Hearing employees started using basic signs even when talking to each other across noisy machines because it was faster than shouting. Luna: That's a fascinating side effect — the accommodation becomes a productivity tool for everyone. Lucas: Exactly. And it created the career ladder. Before this, the deaf employees at Midwest Components were mostly in entry-level assembly or machine operation roles. There was a ceiling. The plant manager said the feedback was always 'we can't promote them because they can't communicate with the broader team or lead a shift meeting.' Luna: Classic catch-22. You can't get the job without the communication skills, but you can't build the communication skills without the job. Lucas: So they broke it by changing the job. Shift leads and team leads now use a combination of visual boards, text-based checklists, and a simple hand-signal protocol. They created a 'leadership track for visual communicators' — that's the actual internal name. Over four years, they promoted eleven deaf or hard of hearing employees into salaried supervisory roles. One is now a production manager overseeing 60 people. Luna: What about retention? The big fear companies have is that they invest in training a deaf employee and then that person leaves for another job. Lucas: Retention among their deaf and hard of hearing workforce over those four years was 92 percent. Plant-wide retention for hearing employees over the same period was 71 percent. So they're holding onto this talent much longer. The plant manager estimated that reduced turnover saved them about $380,000 in recruiting and training costs alone. Luna: And the OSHA fine reduction you mentioned earlier — what was that number? Lucas: Their OSHA recordable incident rate dropped from 4.2 to 2.8 over three years, and they had zero noise-related hearing loss claims — which is a common citation in stamping plants. They told me their workers' comp premiums went down about 12 percent. Not a huge number in absolute dollars, but for a plant that size, it's real. Luna: So the business case is pretty solid. But I want to push on something. Midwest Components is one plant in Ohio with 800 employees. How replicable is this? Can a Fortune 500 company with 50,000 employees do this across multiple sites? Lucas: That's the right question. The plant manager acknowledged that a lot of the success came from the fact that the plant had a critical mass of deaf employees — about 30 at any given time, which is 3.75 percent of the workforce. That made it worth designing systems around them. If you have one deaf employee in a remote sales office, you probably don't need a visual kanban system. Luna: So the model works best where you have density. Maybe in distribution centers, call centers, manufacturing clusters. Lucas: Right. And that's actually where the second-order lesson is. The plant manager told me that the single most important thing they did wasn't any specific technology — it was asking their deaf employees to help design the communication protocols. They formed a working group of eight deaf and hard of hearing employees, gave them a budget, and said 'tell us what works and what doesn't.' Luna: Inclusion by design, not by accommodation. That's a different mindset. Lucas: Exactly. Accommodation says 'we have a system, how do we fit you into it?' Design says 'what system would work for everyone?' And in this case, the system they built ended up benefiting hearing employees too — the visual boards, the hand signals, the text alerts. It made the whole plant safer and more efficient. Luna: It reminds me of the curb-cut effect. You build a ramp for wheelchair users, and suddenly parents with strollers, delivery workers with dollies, and cyclists all use it. Lucas: That's the perfect analogy. And it's not just about safety or efficiency. The plant manager told me that after they started the sign language classes, the deaf employees reported feeling more included in casual conversations — break room chat, shift huddles, even jokes. One employee who had worked there for twelve years said it was the first time she felt like part of the team. Luna: That's powerful. And it's the kind of story that makes you wonder: what other disabilities are being treated as liabilities right now that could actually be assets in the right environment? Lucas: That's exactly the question we try to explore on this show. And episodes like this one are only possible because of listeners who support the work. Luna: Yeah — we don't run ads on Fexingo Business, so a small group of listeners chips in monthly to keep the shows going. It's how we can spend weeks researching a single plant in Ohio. Lucas: If you've gotten value from episodes like this — maybe it shaped a decision you made at work, or gave you an idea to try with your team — you can join those supporters at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No perks, no pressure, just knowing this kind of reporting continues. Luna: And now back to Midwest Components. One last thing, Lucas — what's the next step for them? Are they scaling this? Lucas: They are. The parent company, a larger industrial conglomerate, is piloting the 'visual communicator' program at two other plants — one in Indiana, one in Tennessee. The Indiana plant has only five deaf employees, so they're adapting the model for smaller groups. I'll be curious to see if the safety and retention numbers hold. Luna: That's the test, isn't it? Whether the model survives the transfer from a plant where it was organically developed to one where it's imported. Lucas: It is. But if there's one takeaway from this episode, it's that the starting point shouldn't be 'what can't this person do?' It should be 'what can we learn from how they already navigate the world?' Because in a noisy plant, someone who's been navigating without sound their whole life might just be the best person to lead the line. Luna: That's a good note to end on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. Talk to you next time.