In reply to Ryan:

Need to consider the entire chain. If people at the other end of the call are using the inbuilt computer microphone and are not physically very close to it then room noises becomes significant. By default, Teams uses an auto gain level on the microphone, this is a nice feature, but it means much of the signal is not just a voice. Reverb is effective at reducing clarity and the noise floor (s/n ratio) of the system also becomes significant. The noise floor on cheap equipment is already quite high. Obviously, it is not just about noise, the frequency ranges of the noise are also significant.

Additionally, people tend to speak in higher volumes when using the computer audio, this overloads the microphone and speakers, which are already poor in this regard as they do not have any limiters to manage the signal.

There are some options to experiment with on the Teams audio side of things as I mentioned above.

At the other end of the chain is how the employee hears things. The inbuilt speakers do amazing things for the price and size but they are not really adequate if clarity is important. External speakers such as soundbar can be effective but can also create issues with feedback but for some people it is an effective solution. An alternative is headphones.

In *very* broad terms there are two types, open and closed. Open headphones allow external noise to be heard, generally they will have better sound quality but more usefully here, they allow the person talking to hear their own voice. Most of us struggle when we cannot hear our voice. Open backed headphones can also be more comfortable when used for long periods and they allow any heat to easily escape. Some seem to be more sensitive to this but eventually having hot ears is unpleasant.

Closed headphones will try and seal out the background noise, this is useful for those of us who do not work from an anechoic chamber. The downside is we reduce our ability to hear our voice when talking which also has the effect of raising the volume of our voices, thus overloading the microphone. There are microphones which allow for zero latency monitoring with headphones.

Noise cancellation headphones are technically amazing but they have limitations. They are very efficient at reducing low frequencies but once you get to human speech frequencies their effectiveness is heavily reduced. Looking at the frequency graphs of various headphones, some even amplify external voices when noise reduction is switched on.

Some business focused headphones will place the microphone in front of the mouth. With fancy/expensive units this is fine but in most cases the microphone will work more effectively slightly to the side of the mouth to reduce plosives.

In an ideal world, everyone would use decent quality microphones and speakers whilst working in a highly managed acoustical room but getting people to sit as close as possible to the inbuilt microphone will make a significant difference for most people. This will also allow the camera to show the faces of the employees and so help those who find it useful to read lips.

The psychology of sound (psycho acoustics etc) also plays a key role, under stress ie cannot hear voices clearly, our ability to hear is reduced which means it becomes harder to hear voices. A unhelpful feedback loop is created.

In reply to Susan:

Susan, that is awful that you had to leave a job. My wife has significant hearing loss and needs to read lips to make sense of what is being said. In very small Teams meetings she finds it hard but in larger meetings where she cannot clearly see faces, she has no idea what is said. The captions on Teams is improving but still has a long way to go to be helpful for those with significant hearing problems.

Working from home has significantly extended the working life of my wife but she dreads large meetings.

Hi Ryan, my husband has a hearing impairment I don't think he's ever declared it at work and I have recently worked with a hearing impaired team member who did have hearinbg aids and we followed a number of the routes listed in previous replies.

I can echo the comments made before.
*good meeting etiquette, not talking over people, also being on camera helps - as this helps with lip reading, muting people to elimiate background noise, good signposting (who has said what or not spoken) and summarising and reading back action points all help whether people are hearing impaired or not.
* headphones are great but might not be comfortable or adjust if there is a different level of hearing impairment. I always check sound as I use a jabra mic and speaker which picks up great sound quality and is a little less obvious than headphones.
*Otter AI is a good tool and better than team captions and this can be turned on for all meetings the person needs to attend. Explaining this when it arrives, with sensitivity, helps explain to others why it's there. This tool is also great for neurodiverse colleagues too. It's not perfect.
* recording key meetings also can be a useful reminder with all the caveats that go with recording with permission and the storage that's needed to do that.

Being open to feedback and learning is also key. Some things are trial and error so iterating things helps rather than thinking it's a 'one and done' solution helps.

Good luck.