Dear List,
Please can you advise me on the following,
I have been looking after an employee for the past few months who has been suffering with anxiety and depression due to radio music being played throughout the factory on a Tannoy system. The employee has quite an extensive history of clinical depression.
This employee has never liked particularly loud environments but perceives certain music (he calls it the “boom boom” music, pop, dance and R&B) as repetitive and particular radio stations replay the same music frequently throughout the day. His anxiety did escalate so that any repetitive noise including people speaking would set off his anxiety.
Over the past few months I have worked with this employee with advice from his GP / counsellor and have tried different ways to support him. The company has re-performed the noise survey for his working areas – which are within expectable limits and have undergone an employee survey on the radio service/Tannoy system. Following the employee survey a list of the most popular stations was derived and rotated on a daily basis, the employee responded well to this as his ‘worse’ station was not included on the rotated list. The employee also responded well to initially desensitising techniques and now has specialised hearing protection (they block out the low tones of the “boom boom” music) which he can wear when needed.
All was going well until the company realised that they cannot get all the requested stations and so are using the next most popular station from the survey which is this employee’s ‘nemesis station’. The employee has not responded well to this information and has been verbally aggressive to managers. I have been asked by HR to re-assess this employee and I really would appreciate some advice on what to do as the company are now starting to feel that they have “done enough”and will not turn off the radio as the majority of employees like it.
Thanks Liz.
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