Cornerstone is a leading Scottish charity in social care, providing care and support to people with a variety of needs including learning disabilities, autism and complex care needs. This can be anything from providing a few hours a week to specialist accommodation 24/7 for people with more complex needs. As their workforce is predominantly female, they knew that menopause support was key for both attraction and retention of colleagues. 

With around three quarters of their workforce female and almost half of these aged between 35 and 55, Cornerstone knew that it was vitally important to understand the impact of menopause at work and how this could be best supported. 

“Like most social care organisations, we’ve been affected by the recruitment crisis which deepened during the pandemic,” says HR Projects and Research Advisor Debbie Masson. “Giving our colleagues the right support helps them to achieve the best outcomes, so we wanted to reassure jobseekers they’d be supported through menopause when they were considering where to apply.

“Staff turnover in social care is also very high and we’re no exception. Making sure our female workers are well supported is also a good way for us to boost retention.”

Cornerstone had established that their sickness absence levels were high, so decided to add menopause to the list of reasons for absence, that way  line managers could understand if anyone might need a confidential or supportive conversation. 

“We’d heard from colleagues that menopause can be a difficult subject to talk about at work, and we wanted them to feel secure and comfortable in their conversations,” says Debbie. “This meant making sure we had the resources to offer practical advice and emotional support, reducing any taboo around menopause. Ultimately, we wanted it to become as openly discussed as mental health has over the years.”

Assessing the situation 

Working on the menopause awareness project in partnership with The People Portfolio the first thing the organisation did was conduct a survey to gauge opinion and ideas for how to introduce menopause support. The overall objective was to deliver training, resources and a policy to give structure and momentum to their initiatives. 

“We didn’t want to assume we knew what people wanted, so we decided to ask them,” Debbie continues. “The survey helped to shape our next steps. We found that some of the most common symptoms affecting our colleagues were fatigue, insomnia, hot flushes, night sweats, insomnia and aching joints. 

“We were also able to understand more about the type of situations these symptoms might affect, such as anxiety about administering medication when struggling with brain fog, or forgetting to write things down.”

Designing and developing resources

Using the data, Debbie and the team created a set of resources and a policy. They outlined practical suggestions for reasonable adjustments but made it clear that these could be tweaked according to what was needed to help with symptoms. They also provided a simple action plan, asking what the problematic menopause symptoms were, what the impact of them was at work and what support they felt would help. 

With the support of the project’s menopause coach, the organisation also created an online Teams channel, with a range of bespoke menopause resources covering a range of topics. All types of learning style were catered for, including reading materials, infographics, links to websites, apps and podcasts. There’s also a small lending library of books for people to read at leisure as well as accessible, easy-read documents for the people Cornerstone supports.

The resources are regularly added to, with information about periods and menopause and autism recently included. The resources can be accessed directly by people looking for support, or for line managers to signpost to. 

Training was then rolled out for all managers, helping to equip them with the right skills to have a sensitive conversation with a colleague. 

“We made this mandatory as we felt it was so important,” says Debbie. “When they’d completed it we gave them a pin badge to wear so their teams knew they were happy and able to discuss and support menopause. We then introduced training for people who were going through menopause or who would go through it, giving information about what support was available at Cornerstone. This is now available in a virtual version so can be accessed any time.”

Looking ahead

To find out what their best next steps would be and the impact of the project so far, the team re-surveyed their colleagues. 

The comments were hugely positive, with one colleague saying the support was like ‘a big supportive blanket they could wrap around them when they needed it.’ Another said it had given them the incentive they needed to speak to their doctor. 

“Looking to the future, we’re now looking for the right vehicle for training our male colleagues,” says Debbie. “We’re also looking to include menstrual health in our suite of resources.”

The organisation received The Menopause Friendly Accreditation in 2023 and were highly commended at the Menopause Friendly Employer Awards – as Debbie says, a sign of their long-term commitment to their initiatives.

Best-practice top tips:

• Get buy-in from senior leaders. Our CEO shared her story at the start of the process, which was really helpful.

• Don’t jump in thinking you know exactly what to do. Ask your colleagues at every level to gauge awareness and what issues they might be facing. 

• Take on board feedback to assess both the difference you’ve made and where any gaps might be remaining. 

• Make sure any initiative is specific and relevant to your organisation in terms of sector, geography and culture. While you can get inspiration from elsewhere, keep your own organisation in mind at all times. 

• If you have a union get them on board. Unison supported us in developing our project and gave us important feedback. 

• Communication is key so have a plan. We used an internal weekly bulletin and sent out all-manager updates. We always had to work hard to make sure the communication wasn’t lost during busy times and also that we didn’t send out too much and risk people switching off. 

• Give managers lots of workable suggestions for adjustments but advise them it’s not an exhaustive list. Adjustments should be on an individual basis and reviewed regularly.

• Make sure you only signpost to legitimate sources such as the NHS and Henpicked. There’s a lot of misinformation out there.