are big over-ear headphones inappropriate in a customer-facing role?

A reader writes:

I’m the manager of a large department, one of whose functions is to run an in-person helpdesk service. Our primary audience is under-25s.

We have a member of staff who has requested to wear earphones whilst working on the helpdesk to help manage sensory overload. We always make adjustments for staff where we can to help manage any conditions they may have, be they physical or mental, with the proviso that the adjustments ensure they can do the job.

Here’s where I wonder if I’m being unreasonable and/or out-of-date in my thinking. I’ve said that I don’t mind discreet in-ear headphones, but I draw the line at big over-ear headphones. It’s a customer-facing role and you have to be visibly available to any customers who might approach the desk. My feeling is that obvious headphones indicate that you are not available to customers.

However, I’m wondering if this is a generational thing. Lots of young people habitually wear massive headphones all the time even when with other people. Would they interpret headphones on a helpdesk differently to how I do? Am I just getting old and out-of-touch?!

If you’re old and out-of-touch, I may be too, because I’d have the same initial reaction to the idea of large, very noticeable over-ear headphones in a job where you need to be visibly approachable. There’s a reason large, noticeable headphones are often used to signal “don’t talk to me,” and that’s directly at odds with the needs of the type of job you’ve described.

That said, it’s worth being willing to test that theory, particularly since this employee is dealing with a younger customer base that might not attach the same “don’t interrupt me” message to big headphones than we do.

As a first step, though, it’s worth asking the employee whether more discreet headphones could meet their needs. Accommodations don’t have to be the first thing an employee requests; what the law requires (and I argue what ethics require) is that you enter into an interactive process, where you jointly try to figure out what accommodations would meet both sides’ needs. So asking whether less visible headphones would get the job done is a reasonable inquiry.

If those won’t work, though, then is there a way to test the impact of the bigger ones? You could tell the employee what your concerns are (customers may be hesitant to approach them) but say you’re open to trying it (maybe for a few days or a week initially) to see if that worry is borne out or not. You’d need some way of objectively assessing it; depending on your context, that could be as informal as you simply observing or as structured as comparing how many customers this employee gets in that time period versus other staffers in the same time period (or compared to their average from the previous week, or so forth).

You should also ask the employee to think about specific ways they can demonstrate availability during this test — like making eye contact and smiling when people might be considering approaching, or removing the headphones and asking “can I help you?” or a sign that says “please interrupt when you need us!” or so forth. (I’m not saying any of these are necessarily right for them; there are reasons eye contact might not work well for everyone, for example. The point is for them to think about what will work for them in this job.) The more successfully they can find ways to convey “I’m fully available to help you” — and thus to counter any “don’t talk to me” signals the headphones might otherwise send — the better odds of you both being able to conclude the accommodation will work. And it’s fair (and I’d think useful) to explicitly frame it that way.

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