Voice notes at work: what the law actually requires of an employer

When a team gets into the habit of putting its instructions into voice notes, this stops being a question of preference. A deaf or hard-of-hearing colleague is not merely inconvenienced: they receive less work information than everyone else, with the consequences that follow for their appraisal, their safety and their progression.

This article sets out the UK framework. It is not legal advice, and individual circumstances vary: the aim is to give you the right terms and the right people to approach.

The principle: reasonable adjustments

Under the Equality Act 2010, an employer has a duty to make reasonable adjustments where a provision, criterion or practice puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage compared with others. Running the team's instructions through voice notes is exactly such a practice.

Two points are regularly misunderstood.

First, the duty is anticipatory in spirit and practical in application: what counts as reasonable is judged case by case, against the employer's size and resources. There is no official list of adjustments owed.

Second, the duty is triggered by knowledge, actual or constructive. An employer who could reasonably be expected to know someone is disabled cannot rely on never having been formally told.

Failing to make a reasonable adjustment is itself a form of discrimination under the Act, distinct from direct or indirect discrimination.

What this looks like when the team runs on voice notes

Translated into the daily life of a team living on WhatsApp or an internal messenger, it covers some very concrete requests.

Instructions, priorities and schedule changes go in writing, or are duplicated in writing. This is the most common request and the easiest to meet.

Meetings and video calls produce written notes, which incidentally benefits everyone.

Critical information, times, addresses, figures, safety instructions, never travels by voice note alone. That point is worth pressing beyond accessibility: information that is misheard is lost information for anybody.

And a transcription tool can be provided, in the same way as any other piece of work software.

How to frame the request

Framing matters, because an adjustment is negotiated on the ground of how the team works, not on the ground of your health.

Describe the work situation rather than your hearing: "site instructions arrive as voice notes and I have to ask for them again, which holds the team up" carries further than "I don't hear well". You are not obliged to hand your medical history to your employer.

Propose something specific and bounded. "Instructions in writing in the team channel" is a request that can be actioned; "something should be done" is not.

Put it in writing and keep a record. A dated email beats a corridor conversation, including when everything is going well.

Who to approach

Occupational health is the most direct route. They can recommend workplace adjustments to your employer without passing on medical details. It is often both the most effective and the most protective path.

Access to Work, the government scheme, can fund equipment, support workers and communication support. Applications are made by the individual, not the employer.

Your line manager or HR, with the request framed as above.

Your union representative, if you have one, particularly where the request meets resistance.

RNID publishes practical guidance on employment rights and workplace adjustments for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and is a useful reference before any conversation.

Where transcription fits, and where it does not

A transcription tool is one adjustment among several, not an answer to everything.

What it handles well: asynchronous voice notes, the ones that pile up across the day and have to be worked through one by one. A tool like Abrège returns the transcript or a summary of a forwarded voice note, inside the messenger, with no app to install.

What it does not handle: live meetings, which need different provision, and voice notes recorded in noise, which transcribe as badly as they listen. On confidentiality, note that transcription runs through OpenAI's API, the only step outside our servers, before the audio is deleted. For sensitive instructions, that is worth raising with your employer.

Above all, a tool does not excuse the team from changing its habits. Writing critical information down remains more effective than transcribing it afterwards.

In short

An employer must make reasonable adjustments so that a deaf or hard-of-hearing employee can do their job on equivalent terms. Writing instructions instead of recording them is one of those adjustments, and it is a difficult one to refuse as disproportionate.

The request lands better when it is framed around the work, sent in writing, and supported by occupational health. And the most effective adjustment is usually the simplest: write down whatever has to be exact.