The new Labour government has launched its plan to ‘make work pay’ with a core part of their mission to grow Britain’s economy and raise living standards across the UK.
Part of this is to prioritise the wellbeing of women workers including the pledge to require employers with more than 250 employees to produce menopause action plans. While we don’t know the details yet, it would clearly be a big step change.
Deborah Garlick, CEO of Henpicked: Menopause in the Workplace, which powers The Menopause Friendly Accreditation was so inspired by Labour’s Manifesto that she wrote an open letter to Sir Keir Starmer.
She believes that “We’ve made great progress over the last eight years: back then there wasn’t a menopause policy to be found. In 2023, the CIPD said one in four employers had a menopause policy. Conversely, Unite found that 83% of employees said they had nothing. This demonstrates that it takes time to change hearts and minds around menopause, with a significant cultural shift across our workplaces and communities. And it takes time to reach all employees in an organisation.
“But I’m looking forward to the announcement of what Labour plan to do, which they say will be 100 days after forming a Government. This is now set for the 30 October 2024.”
The need for all organisations to be menopause friendly is crucial, when we consider these four compelling cases.
Demographic case. We’re living and working for longer, with 8 in 10 menopausal women now in work. Many will work for years – decades – beyond the start of their menopause transition, so it’s essential we support women though their menopause at work.
Business case. Research from the Fawcett Society says that 1 in 10 women have left work due to menopause. Oxford Economics found that it costs £30k to fill a vacancy – so it’s cheaper to retain staff than to be constantly recruiting. A key priority for many HR directors in our current climate is retention. In addition, many are highlighting the ‘Menopause Friendly’ status to attract new employees. There is a lot more to the business case and being menopause friendly could actually positively contribute to an organisation’s financial bottom-line.
Legal case. Menopause is already covered by employment law: the Equality Act 2010 under the protected characteristics of age, sex and disability discrimination and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 also give organisations an obligation to look after the wellbeing of their colleagues.
According to Labour’s Manifesto, changes to the legislation that protect against discrimination in the workplace will make the work environment even more comfortable for us all. It’s also likely that employee ‘payoffs’ will become much harder, with new collective procedures for employees.
Social responsibility. Many organisations realise the value of simply caring about their colleagues’ wellbeing. They want their people to thrive and be at their best. We also believe it’s key to closing the gender pay gap, creating more diversity at senior and board levels.
To help organisations consider what a menopause action plan could look like, we spoke to three of our Menopause Friendly members to get their thoughts, top tips and best practice advice:
Lou Furby is Senior Events, Planning & Communications Manager at Specsavers. Her initial thoughts on the Labour Government’s Manifesto are: “I’d like to see this as a checkpoint too for organisations below 250 people. Being a small business doesn’t mean you don’t have the same responsibilities, so I hope these menopause action plans will be as a best practice blueprint regardless of company size.”
Julie Cridland is Employee Experience Lead at Aster Group and hopes the new initiatives will follow a similar route to The Menopause Friendly Accreditation. “The categories in the accreditation act as a real focal point for how you introduce training and awareness, what to include in your policy and guidance and, crucially, how you engage your people.”
Ben Towell is Strategic Lead for Employee Wellness at Mersey Care NHS. “I’ve got great hopes, but am always slightly concerned when things are mandated. A menopause action plan can’t be looked at in isolation, but needs to be a part of an organisation’s culture. Otherwise it can feel tokenistic. We can’t just tick the box and miss the point, so understanding how do we keep the momentum going is key.”
Lou says that bringing the conversation out into the open was pivotal for the success of their own menopause support at Specsavers. “We wanted to be completely honest and upfront, so we made our network open to everyone. This underpins everything we did – all our messaging was directed to everyone, not just those going through menopause.
“We used language plainly, not shying away from terms. The real strength of our momentum lay in real, open conversations.”
Ben believes a holistic approach is important. “How do you win hearts and minds in this agenda? You’ve got to be able to speak in a range of different currencies. I did a workplace diagnostic to understand the size and scale of our issue. I found that 65% of our workforce who were going through menopause said it impacted on the working day. But there’s no point just leaving this data there. How does this affect sickness, how can we keep people fit and supported?
“Tapping into personal experiences was a great way to advocate our agenda, too. We have a senior HR director supporting us, helping to keep everything visible. We’ve launched things like little handheld fans and branded water bottles. These alone won’t change everything, but it’s about not looking at one thing in isolation. Rather, you need to develop a plan to overcome challenges and then build your campaign from there.”
Julie says Aster Group’s menopause journey was a result of mental health work they were doing. “I was approached to include psychological symptoms of menopause on our mental health agenda. I didn’t really know much about menopause, other than periods stopping and hot flushes, so it was a journey of awareness. Getting people together and finding out what their challenges were, what they thought could help them at work, and then we started designing our menopause programme from the ground up.
“We started by introducing quick and simple initiatives that we knew would make a huge difference, like placing free period products in our bathrooms, and built on it from there. Our menopause policy came later on because we realised there was much more we needed and wanted to do.”
Engagement is a key part of all menopause campaigns. Our members all had different ways of reaching out to their colleagues.
Lou added, “Our group MenoTalk was mainly comprised of people with first-hand experience of menopause at first. Our other similar groups had members who could actively drive change, but we didn’t want to ask this of our members as they were already having difficulties at work.
“So we built up a strong allyship, using platforms like Viva Engage, to spread the word and communicate across the business. There was also strong collaboration with other groups, so we land across multiple networks together.
“Our members can choose which level of membership they want. They can be an ambassador and bang the menopause drum at every opportunity. Or a champion, more in the background pushing the network in team huddles, a quieter drumbeat. Plus we have allies, who are very informed and educated, quietly absorbing everything and influencing when they get a chance.”
Julie says that for Aster, training and awareness was key. “We wanted to ensure our leaders felt supported and were armed with the right information before we rolled the programme out to colleagues. We also ran some women-only and men-only sessions, so people felt more comfortable asking questions. We now talk about menopause all the time, and our training and awareness sessions definitely helped with engagement and removing any stigma.”
Ben thinks that engagement can come from challenging stereotypes. “I’ve made it my mission in Mersey Care to be a positive role model, for men to be able to be understanding and empathetic, to check in without thinking there will be a negative impact. I must hear the word menopause ten times a day, because our colleagues feel very comfortable discussing it.
“For us, it’s a conversation like any other. We have a process to follow, listening without judgment and following up afterwards. This means we’re not just appealing to women experiencing menopause, but to men who might be line managers having a conversation or making a referral. Making a positive culture change means really embedding your initiatives into every aspect of your organisation, so everyone is on the same page.”
Launching an initiative is one thing. But keeping the momentum going is also key, to avoid slipping down the priority list.
“We hold a sofa session every month where people can come and talk about menopause, with speakers, advice, Q&As – all about different aspects of menopause,” says Julie. “We also have a Hot Topic community, with a Teams channel and topic threads for people to join in the conversation.
“Menopause isn’t an awkward subject any more in Aster Group. It’s just another thing we talk about and it’s embedded in all aspects of our organisation.”
Lou wanted to make sure the positives of menopause were also communicated. “We made sure all our messaging gave a positive flavour of the benefits being a menopause friendly employer could bring, and the knock-on conversations this would allow us to have with our customers. For us, it’s all about how we can keep talking and keep paying it forward.”
“In a world of multiple conflicting priorities, how do you keep this a priority?” says Ben. “I don’t know if there’s an answer, but it’s something to be mindful of. We have a strong lens shining on all protected groups, and work needs to be done in all of those spaces. It’s about making sure all of these groups have equal investment with sustainable plans.”
And finally, our Menopause Friendly members told us about what they felt had really made a difference in their workplaces.
Julie says: “Sharing stories and looking at reframing preconceived ideas has been a real winner. I wanted to challenge some of the negative words around menopause, like angry and sweaty, and look more at this as talented women coming to midlife at the peak of their career. I asked if anyone was willing to share a personal story and about 15 people came forward.
“It’s so important to look at what we can be embracing in midlife. If we can get some of the symptoms managed there’s so much to look forward to.”
Ben says: “I looked at some of the data to demonstrate the positive impacts our menopause work was having. I found we’d engaged with over 800 staff, and of these 88% have said the intervention they’ve received in relation to menopause has supported them to cope and stay in work. Essentially, it’s stopped them going off sick.
“Our average sickness episode equates to £4.6k per staff member, so as a Trust of 12.k staff we stand to spend lots on sickness absence if we do not support our colleagues effectively.
Attributing this to the menopause interventions we’ve put in place gives me a great case to take to HR. Of the 816 colleagues that we engaged with 88% (718) reported that the menopause intervention offered/accessed would support them to cope and stay well in work. This is equates to a potential indirect sickness absence saving for the Trust of 3.3 million per year. Now let’s pretend that all these staff who have stayed in work are District Nurses. By keeping them well in work and supporting them effectively through their menopause journey we have been able to keep an additional 718 nurses in work who will reach an additional 151,100 patient visits per year! This is a great way to get buy in for our initiatives, with good evidence to support the benefits.”
“Our senior leadership is very visible, so we asked them to contribute to a poster with each leader holding up a menopause symptom,” says Lou. “This was seen by a lot of people as commitment from the top – if we see our co-founder holding up a picture of tiredness associated with menopause, that’s an instant connection. We saw a huge increase in the number of people attending and completing our training.
“This senior leadership engagement cascading the message from top down was the most effective piece of activity we’ve delivered to date.”
