Miss Menopause was formed over six years ago in response to the lack of information about menopause in the workplace. Sharon MacArthur works face to face and online around the country with organisations large and small. She has appeared on BBC Breakfast, ITN News, Channel 5 and Victoria Derbyshire. Organisations are starting to understand that menopause is a business issue which will impact every one of their colleagues. Sharon’s mission is to make menopause business as usual.
Menopause in the workplace is a hot topic. In the last few years there has been a lot more information around the subject. That’s all good but is it getting too complicated and confusing?
If you want to be an employer of choice then including menopause in your people plans makes absolute business sense. Everyone in your business will be impacted by menopause directly or indirectly.
Negative impact at work
A 2019 survey conducted by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that three in five menopausal women – usually aged between 45 and 55 – were negatively affected at work. BUPA found that almost 900,000 women in the UK had left their jobs because of menopausal symptoms. The impact of menopause is reduced productivity, leavers, early retirement, absenteeism, and presentism which ultimately affects your bottom line. In conjunction within increased pensionable ages, and an ageing workforce the need to understand the impact of menopause will only increase.
Most women will encounter menopause in and around their 40s. However there is also a percentage of women who will encounter menopause sooner than that, so in effect, every single person in your business, needs to know about the impact of menopause in their lives. I believe learning about this life event can only help to improve the wellbeing of all of your people.
Policy priority?
So you’ve got the training now need a menopause policy don’t you? Well that all depends. My thoughts are that you don’t. Policies are only as good as the people who read them. How many people in your business have the time to read a new policy? What would be the purpose of your policy anyway? Instead how might you stitch menopause into your current processes? That should be much more simple? I believe most if not all of the things you need to embed menopause in your workplace are already there and are no cost or low cost. For example if someone disclosed a pregnancy what would you do? I’m sure you’d offer simple things like time off for appointments, a workstation review? All of these things you have can be applied to menopause.
If you write a menopause policy, are you not in danger of becoming an exclusive employer rather than an inclusive one? What about John in accounts? Have you written a diabetes policy for him? Louise in sales who’s sadly been diagnosed with cancer? Have you written a policy for her around cancer? In my opinion, a good employer will always be a good one and a bad employer will not improve with a policy. It really comes down to good quality conversations between your people and their managers along with an atmosphere of trust. A policy can’t do that. A good manager will always listen to the needs of each individual and act accordingly whatever they need? Years ago one of my people lost his father. The policy said I should only pay him one week’s bereavement leave. He was off for 11 weeks. I paid him for all of his time off. He was a good guy it was the right thing to do.
Robust management recruitment
Having a robust management recruitment programme is the key to having the right people in the right roles doing and saying the right things? How many of you in HR have had the feedback “they said” I had to do it or “that’s what the policy said?” Having a policy means some managers will take it as black and white. Here’s a great example of this. I was working in a company several years ago and as I was walking up the office I was ambushed by a women who wanted to tell me her story.
“I think I’m going through the menopause,” she said. “I get really hot so I’ve asked my manager several times if I can have a desk fan. He’s checked the policy and yes I can have one but only if I’m pregnant?” Here is a great example of a manager taking no personal responsibility. A fan isn’t an unreasonable request but in this instance the manager only looked at what the policy said and because it didn’t reference menopause he decided it was a no.
That’s the other problem with a menopause policy. One size doesn’t fit all, Everyone will be unique and remember it can affect everyone in your business, not just “women of a certain age”.
Having clear accountabilities from day one is essential if your going to create a culture of trust and openness and needs to start in your recruitment process. Yes as an organisation you have a duty of care as do your managers but each individual has a duty of care for themselves. This is surely about a partnership not just one way traffic? This clarity should also mean less onus on a policy.
Taking people with you
So when it comes to menopause think about what you trying to achieve and how will you get your people to come along with you?
What training do you need and who needs it? When it comes to your current processes how you can stitch menopause into them or create a generic set of processes, which include all wellbeing and EDI needs not specific to one thing?
When you keep things simple and help your people to understand what’s the same not what’s different, you will get much swifter buy in and engagement.
Educate everyone. Keep it simple. Use what you have and create a culture where you can get people talking and taking positive action.
