The Equality Act

Pre-employment health risk assessments not yet considered anything other than potentially discriminatory especially where very specific and not a generic or general enquiry as probably be better to run a personality profile to discover whether a more precoscious 'risk taker' or recessive person most likely to be compliant with health and safety PPE use !

Maybe the answer to your specific enquiry maybe "openly answered" in hobbies section of CV or Resume supplied by applicant rather than being asked by you prior to selection and any potential offer..............

Not that one could use that as interview selection criteria at all at all like

John

If the hobby is noisy steps are usually taken to alleviate any damage,

Barry

Hello John,

Thank you for your query.

As with all cases, it should be the best person for the job, the Equality Act just reinforces that fact by not allowing employers to make health assessments prior to appointment.

I would suggest that you look to make a selection in line with the requirements of the job. Then once a job offer has been made and accepted you can then review any hearing issues that the person may or may not have. This way you can understand if they were pre existing conditions and not be caught out by employees making claims against your company for damage to their hearing.

I hope that this helps, Suzanne.

In our application form for new employees can we ask if they have any noisy hobbies ie shooting, motor sports can we still ask these questions under the new equality act ? As we noisy areas at work and then are offered ear defenders/earplugs the deciabels are below 85db