Advice about dealing with noise at work

By law you have a responsibility to protect your staff from excessive noise and also avoid causing a noise nuisance for your neighbours. 

A good indication of a problem would be if people have to shout or have difficulty being understood by someone about two metres away.  To be sure about this you will need to get the noise assessed properly. 

You can reduce noise by:

• having designated ear protection zones where ear defenders must be worn;
• moving certain tasks to a quieter area of the factory;
• limiting the amount of time staff spend in noisy areas; and
• limiting the number of staff in those areas.

If you are buying new machinery check what noise reduction features it has.  Think about grouping noisy processes together and using sound insulating materials and barriers. 

To reduce neighbourhood noise nuisance you should try to restrict noisy processes to the daytime.  You should also keep windows and doors closed where noisy works are going on.