183: Hearing Loss Awareness Designing for Empathy at Scale (HSBC) - Georgie Cooke, Louise Bassiri and Michelle Parry-Slater

Hearing loss is more common than most workplaces acknowledge. Around one in six Australians, one in eight Americans, and one in five UK adults lives with some form of hearing loss, tinnitus or D/deafness. Yet at HSBC UK, only a handful of colleagues had formally disclosed a hearing loss before this project launched. In this episode, Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with Georgie Cooke from Lima Delta and Louise Bassiri from HSBC UK about their award-shortlisted hearing loss awareness programme, created with the RNID and learning partner Jam Pan. Rather than telling colleagues about hearing loss, they simulated it, placing learners inside first-person video scenarios in real HSBC locations, with audio shaped by RNID audiologists to recreate common hearing loss experiences. The results: over 4,000 voluntary completions, a 400% increase in colleague disclosures, nearly 2,000 hearing checks taken, and for some, a life-changing diagnosis.