Can music headphones be used at work?
Can music headphones be used at work? Short answer: no, these can’t be worn in high noise areas or used as hearing protection, and this applies equally to over-head styles, in-ear styles and bone conduction, and both passive noise blocking or active noise cancelling.
If you have no noise risk in somewhere such as an office then there is nothing stopping them being used. Companies do sometimes choose to ban them outright although personally I don’t see any reason why they should, you can easily check if people can still hear things like fire alarms when using them for example, but there is no law saying they can’t be used.
They also are dodgy in places like warehouses where there may be no noise risk but there are vehicles such as forklifts whizzing around and I would caution against standard music headphones there too.
So, all this pertains to somewhere with a noise risk.
The law says an employer can’t permit them to be used
Employers have a legal duty to provide hearing protection which is certified as hearing protection under a branch of EN 352, and carries a CE or UKCA mark confirming it has been assessed as hearing protection. It will have performance figures such as an SNR value.
This is an absolute duty; GPs, HR or anyone else cannot exempt someone from wearing hearing protection in a high noise area, nor can they say it is OK to wear normal noise cancelling music headphones. Think of it this way, it is like a GP or HR saying ‘yes, we know Dave is really annoying so we are saying it is OK to kill him on this occasion, go ahead, get your big hammer’. They can’t do that just as they can’t issue policies or letters saying music headphones are actually OK.
(I flag this specifically as I have come across both situations - a GP saying someone could use music headphones and a HR department saying they were OK to use as it was good for employee morale).
If music playing headphones do not have this EN 352 certification then it is simply not allowed for them to be used in a high noise workplace. Standard music headphones of any type are not certified as hearing protection therefore are not allowed to be used. Apple particularly keep using ‘hearing protection’ in their Air Pods marketing but that is just marketing, they are not certified as hearing protection.
There is a simple rule here - if you can’t lay your hands on a proper certified SNR figure for a hearing protector, then it is not hearing protection.
But there are also other issues:
Noise reduction claims made by manufacturers for noise-cancelling headphones
Noise reduction levels in Apple Air Pods 2
Source: Apple, click to enlarge
Noise reduction levels claimed by music headphone manufacturers can seem quite good, for example this is the data for Apple Air Pods Pro 2 and with active noise cancellation they are claiming to reduce noise levels by 25 to 30 dB, which is significant.
I have some of these and some Sony XM5 over-ear ones and both do make a significant difference to background noise levels, but that is not certified under EN 352.
One problem is that often with active noise cancelling, the noise cancelling is not entirely consistent depending on the external noise, so you may not always be getting the noise reduction expected. This kind of very-simplified data can be misleading.
There is one more wee issue here to be aware of, and this will have non-noise people shaking their heads a bit, but the standards for noise safety are different around the world.
In Apple’s data here they are using American data so have things in that table like it being OK to be in 90 dB for up to four hours. No, here in the UK and in the EU, the safe limit for four hours is considered to be 88 dB, not 90 dB, we would consider the safe time for a noise level of 90 dB to be two and a half hours, not four.
We can’t take manufacturer’s data as gospel.
Put it this way, if Apple could get their AirPods certified as hearing protection as the noise cancelling feature was so good and reliable they’d do it in a heartbeat, the sales would be huge! I am sure that will come soon - at some point Bose or Sony or Apple or someone will get their music headphones certified, but until then they simply aren’t hearing protection and can’t be used at work, no matter how good the data provided by manufacturers appears.
Noise cancelling removes noise, then the music adds it back.
People don’t tend to wear headphones quietly, nobody does. As a noise-nerd I am more aware of noise risks than most, but if I switch from my Sony XM5 or AirPod headphones to my ISOTunes hearing protection which has volume-limited music playback, the ISOTunes sounds incredibly quiet. ISOTunes are hearing protection first and foremost so the music playback is limited to below 85 dB(A) meaning they can be used at work.
There is no way I would listen to normal music headphones at that volume, nobody would.
That means if the noise-cancelling reduces external noise levels by 25dB (to use Apple’s data above) then the music playback will add that noise back in again plus a lot more, and if they are wearing them all day every day at work, their hearing will be damaged.
The employer can retain liability for hearing loss
As a follow-on, if someone has worn music headphones in a high noise area instead of hearing protection, the employer now has a liability for any music-induced hearing loss they may suffer! The employer has them working in a noise risk area and has not enforced the use of hearing protection - if that person puts a claim in for hearing loss caused by their job, the employer will be getting the cheque book out as they will more than likely lose a claim.
What about a medical claim of a need to use them?
This was a new one I came across recently - an employee claimed that they needed to wear their music headphones at work as they got too anxious to work unless they were listening to music.
However, no, their claimed need to listen to music to control anxiety still does not mean music headphones can be used when working in a high noise area.
There were three ways of dealing with it:
The employer provides hearing protection which has built-in music playback. (Care is needed here though as then the other 250 people in the factory will make the same claim and that’s a huge bill. I would recommend this is only done with a GP letter confirming the issue).
They are moved to a non-noise area, if there is one.
They suck it up and get on with it. An unpopular opinion I know, but I am old-school enough to believe an employer does not have to, and cannot, accommodate every whim or issue and that not everyone is suitable for every job. Sometimes the world cannot accommodate everything. If it is an issue, go and get a different job.
There is more on medical exemptions from hearing protection here but no, a medical claim does not mean normal music headphones can be used in a high noise area whatever the claim.
Air Pods Pro 2 marketed with a ‘hearing protection’ function
Apple and then journalists talking about noise-cancelling headphones in the media and press don’t help to be honest. They throw around phrases like ‘hearing protection’ or ‘protecting hearing’ in relation to noise cancelling headphones but that is just wrong. ‘Hearing protection’ is a definite and specific thing and primarily it means it is certified as hearing protection, which these music headphones are not.
Apple’s marketing and the journalists writing about using noise cancelling headphones as hearing protection are a little too free and easy with the terminology without actually understanding it.
‘Hearing protection’ is a very specific thing and the AirPods Pro 2 ‘hearing protection’ function (when finally rolled out in the UK) is not ‘hearing protection’ for the workplace. No doubt other manufacturers will follow suit pretty quickly. Safety people will need to clamp down on this in their workplaces. Feel free to point people who ask back to this page, I don’t mind being the bad guy saying ‘no’.
My recommended solution
There are a lot of types of hearing protection out there which do have music and/or radio playback facilities and they are great. They are certified as hearing protection meaning they have the EN 352 certification and an SNR rating. The internal volume playback is limited so they cannot go loud enough to damage hearing but also cannot go loud enough to isolate someone and stop them hearing things like alarms or someone shouting to them.
There is a lot of rubbish on the market so be careful - some of the products on places like Amazon are truly terrible. I tried some Prohear muffs wish Bluetooth and they were like listening to some 1980s walkman headphones while sitting with a metal bucket on your head.
I recommend the ISOTunes range and they have a full range of muffs and in-ear plugs, some with an active feature which lets low volume noise through and some with a more basic fixed SNR. I use the ISOTunes Air Defenders all the time. Their battery lasts all day, they are comfy, the music quality is good, and they are not overly expensive.
An employer can provide those and there are benefits, for example usually hugely increased compliance with the use of the hearing protection as people are seeing a benefit to it. Alternative, as long as the employer makes an ear plug and an ear muffler available free of charge, they could approve the ISOTunes ones but let employees pay for it as they would for their normal headphones.
Other links
Link: Medical exemptions from the need for hearing protection
Link: Employees signing disclaimers about hearing protection
