Managing Menopause at Work

Women affected by menopause are now the fastest growing workforce demographic. So, in what continues to be a challenging recruitment market, it’s unsurprising that menopause at work has been a hot topic in recent months. But what exactly does this mean for your charity? And what can you do to help retain current staff and attract new employees who are affected by menopause at work?

What is menopause?

Menopause is when women, or others who menstruate, haven’t had a period for 12 consecutive months. You may have also heard the term ‘perimenopause’ and this refers to symptoms that women experience before their periods stop—these can last from a few months to a number of years.

Women usually experience menopause between the ages of 45 and 55, but it can occur earlier than this. Physical symptoms include hot flushes, difficulty sleeping due to night sweats, headaches, brain fog and fatigue. Menopause has also been linked to an increase in mental health conditions such as anxiety, stress and depression.

What impact does menopause have in the workplace?

While many women are only mildly affected by the menopause, others have more severe symptoms that can make it more challenging for them to perform their duties. Or they may need time off work and feel embarrassed or reluctant to tell their line manager why.

Research has shown that menopause has caused 25% of women to consider resigning and 10% to actually leave their jobs. It’s also estimated that 14 million working days a year are lost to menopause symptoms.

In what has been a very competitive recruitment market the last couple of years, losing up to 10% of this talent pool is something that you can ill-afford. Especially in the charity sector, where two thirds of employees are women and two thirds are also over the age of 40. This demographic is crucial to your workforce.

Do you need a menopause policy at work?

Legally, you don’t need a menopause policy at work and there is no specific law that covers it. However, if an employee is disadvantaged or treated less favourably because of their menopause symptoms, this could be viewed as discrimination if connected to a characteristic protected under the Equality Act (such as gender or age).

While you don’t need one, having a menopause policy at work will be a big plus for your charity. It will reflect your culture and show you care about your employees. This is important for both employee retention and in selling your brand to potential new hires.

Depending on your current setup, it also doesn’t have to be a lot of work to introduce a menopause policy at work. It might just be a case of extending existing initiatives and support that you offer and making it clear that this is open to those affected by the menopause.

How can you support women affected by the menopause at work?

Break down the taboo

One of the first, and most important, things you can do is to encourage open conversation about menopause at work. Try to create an environment where your employees feel comfortable talking about menopause and it’s no longer considered a taboo subject. Then they’re much more likely to ask for the help and support that they need.

Raise awareness through information and training

Offer all your employees, not just those who are directly affected, more information about menopause through guidance and training. Perhaps you could get an expert to come in and speak about the topic, or you could publish a guidance document signposting to further sources of support and information.

Offer support

Regardless of the culture you create, not every woman will feel confident being upfront about their symptoms or the support they need. So you could consider setting up an informal support group within your charity—whether this is via in-person meetings or a Microsoft Teams channel. Or you could even designate specific people within your organisation that your staff can go to for support with menopause at work—and train those people in how to handle the conversations.

You could also provide a written process to help employees know who to approach and how to go about requesting support. If you’re unsure where to start with this then have a look at the resources offered by Henpicked.

Review your sickness policy

While you likely already have some kind of sickness absence and sick pay policy in your organisation, it’s worth checking that this is fit for purpose when it comes to menopause. For employees who need regular time off for their symptoms, you might need to record this differently from other sickness absence to avoid unfairly hitting any occupational health review or payment limits.

Don’t forget that severe menopause symptoms can be considered a disability, meaning you need to make sure that the employee isn’t disadvantaged by them.

Make reasonable adjustments

Whether considered a disability or not, you should look at the reasonable adjustments you can make to support employees affected by menopause at work.

Flexible working/staggered hours, remote working or more breaks could allow women to better manage symptoms, such as disrupted sleep.  Or you could offer a quiet space in the office to rest, or a temperature-controlled work station.

Provide mental health support

In addition to the physical symptoms, menopause can cause anxiety, low mood and low self-esteem. Support for the mental health aspects of menopause can be even more important than the physical ones. If you already offer mental health support in your organisation then make sure you extend this to menopause and signpost it to employees. Otherwise it might be worth investing in a subscription to a helpline or other support services to help reduce recruitment costs in the long term.

Don’t forget that menopause affects everyone differently, so avoid taking a ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead focus on offering a range of support and information options to make all employees feel more comfortable.

And if you introduce any specific support for menopause at work in your charity then don’t forget to mention it in your job advert when you post a job to help attract those all-important candidates.