Menopause at Work- A Practical Readiness Review for People Teams

🗒 Summary

Angela joined us following Menopause Awareness Month in October to walk through her Menopause Readiness Review, a framework People teams can use to work out where their menopause support stands and what to do first. We covered the legal picture in the UK, six areas where support can be built, and a deep dive on manager confidence and capability.

📡 The Big Ideas

👉 Alex looks fine from the outside Alex has been with her company for 10+ years and is well regarded. She is sleeping badly, finding it hard to concentrate in long meetings, feeling anxious, double-checking everything and catching up in the evenings. To everyone else, nothing has changed. The first visible signal is that she turns down a big project. Without context, colleagues could read that as disengagement or a sign she is job hunting.

👉 Knowing support exists is different from feeling safe to use it Alex remembers an awareness session from a couple of years ago, but has no idea how her manager or leadership team would react. She watches how people talk about menopause, whether anyone else mentions it, and whether other requests get taken seriously. That is how she decides whether to say anything. Most people carry on and hope things improve.

👉 A manager's understanding changes the outcome of the conversation A manager who associates menopause only with hot flushes in older women might dismiss what Alex describes. A well-meant "I'm sure it's just a phase" can end the conversation for good. Managers do not need to recommend treatments or hold a view on HRT. They need to take what she says seriously, explore which parts of work are hard, and help her reach the right support.

👉 Symptoms have many causes, so managers should not diagnose Poor sleep, anxiety and concentration problems can have many causes. Managers can be prepared for menopause conversations without being encouraged to decide that menopause explains a change in someone's work.

👉 Check what people want before assuming Alex may well have wanted the project. A change to her working pattern might have been all she needed to make it manageable. If colleagues assume she has lost interest, an opportunity quietly disappears.

👉 Menopause covers more people and more ages than most assume Menopause is formally identified after 12 months without a period. Natural menopause usually happens between 45 and 55, but perimenopause can start in the late 30s or earlier, and surgery, medical treatment or other conditions can bring it on much sooner. Some trans and non-binary people experience it too. Symptoms range from hot flushes and night sweats to poor sleep, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, low mood and loss of confidence, and they change over time.

⚡ The UK Legal Picture

Existing responsibilities (England, Scotland, Wales)

• Menopause is not a separate protected characteristic under the Equality Act, but treatment linked to menopause can raise protections around sex, age or disability
• Where effects meet the legal definition of disability, reasonable adjustments may apply
• Health and safety duties apply, including where the work or working environment makes symptoms harder to manage
• Northern Ireland has a different equality framework, and international employers need to check each country

Menopause action plans

• Employers with 250 or more employees can publish voluntary action plans alongside their gender pay gap information, which came in from April this year
• The government expects these to become mandatory from spring 2027, subject to legislation
• Under the voluntary approach, a plan needs at least two actions that are new or in progress, with one addressing the gender pay gap and one supporting employees experiencing menopause
• Existing menopause support can be included alongside new or ongoing commitments
• The 250 threshold applies to each separate legal entity within a group, so one company of 300 meets it, while two group companies of 150 each fall below it
• Overseas employees may count if their employment remains closely connected to Great Britain, so check your numbers carefully
• Each qualifying company in a group needs its own submission, though the actions can be identical
• Public authorities in Scotland and Wales have different reporting arrangements

A general awareness session is a great starting point and Angela recommends running one annually, but it is not one of the listed actions on the published plan. You will need to do something else too.

⚡ The Six Areas of Menopause Support

The Readiness Review looks at six areas. You can work through all of them over time and prioritise from there.

1. Employee voice and insight Whose experiences are you actually hearing? Networks tend to attract people comfortable being vocal. Shift workers may not be able to attend. Senior women often prefer to seek advice privately. Offer several ways to contribute, such as an anonymous survey asking whether people know what support exists, what they would value, and what would stop them using it. Then tell people what you learned and what you will do with it.

2. Culture and shared understanding A supportive message from a leader helps. Jokes about women forgetting things or being "at that age" undermine it quickly. Good support means addressing those comments and making clear that someone can ask for help and still be seen as ambitious and capable.

3. Manager confidence and capability Managers need to understand how symptoms can affect a working day and feel able to explore what might help without assuming the cause. (Detailed below.)

4. Policy guidance and consistency If someone mentions menopause while discussing absence or working hours, does your guidance help their manager know what to consider? Adding menopause examples to existing guidance helps people's circumstances get fair and consistent consideration.

5. Practical support Think about whether support works in the actual job. A fan helps with hot flushes. Heavy bleeding or irregular periods may need easier toilet access and stocked sanitary products. Joint or muscle pain affects a desk worker and a production line worker differently. If someone on a shop floor needs short breaks, is there cover? Keep private health details private, and check back with the employee because symptoms and needs change over time.

6. Routes to support and specialist help What does your help actually cover? An employee assistance programme may offer counselling but not menopause-informed advice. People may need clinical guidance, support with changes at work, or coaching on confidence and difficult conversations. Check who can access it, including shift workers and employees in other countries, and who someone can approach if they are uncomfortable talking to their manager.

⚡ Deep Dive: Manager Confidence and Capability

Step 1: Pick a readiness description for this area

• Early stage: managers have very little menopause-specific preparation, even if general management guidance is strong
• Developing: some menopause guidance or learning exists, with gaps or uncertainty about how it is used
• Embedded: examples or feedback show managers using that understanding day to day
• Not sure: you do not yet know enough about what happens when menopause comes up in your organisation

Step 2: Reflect on four questions

• What preparation do managers have for these conversations? Can they discuss changes at work without jumping to conclusions about the cause? How do they respond when someone raises menopause?
• What do you know, or think you know, about how managers respond? What have you heard from managers and employees?
• Where have you noticed hesitation? Is it different responses to the same request, or uncertainty about practical support?
• What would you need to hear from people to understand what you do not know yet?

Then choose one thing you would like to follow up on.

What a recent employee survey surfaced Angela shared themes from an anonymous survey she ran for a client, covering both employees and managers:

• People did not know what good workplace support would look like
• Concerns about privacy, confidentiality and what happens to health information
• Worry that performance expectations could become unclear between manager and employee
• Concern that managers might be expected to deal with health matters outside their role

Guidance and training need to answer these directly: what could support look like in someone's job, how will information be handled, what is the manager expected to do, and who can help when they are unsure.

Step 3: Turn it into an action using five prompts

1. What needs attention?
2. What is that based on?
3. What is the first step?
4. Who needs to be involved, and when?
5. How will you check what happened?

Worked example: Employees say they are unclear what menopause support involves, you have little guidance, and you are considering manager training. Start by checking what guidance a manager could use today if an employee said menopause was affecting her sleep and asked to change her start time. Add menopause information to existing guidance or explain existing support more clearly. Then pair it with practical manager training where managers can work through the conversations and practise. Involve whoever owns the guidance and the manager learning, bring in managers themselves, and get a senior leader to prioritise it and give managers time. Afterwards, ask managers whether they feel clearer about their role and where to get help, and ask employees whether they understand the support and whether it helps when they use it.

✅ What You Should Do: A Practical Step Plan

1. Pick one of the six areas and run the readiness check You do not need to do everything at once. Start with the area where you suspect the biggest gap. For most teams that is manager confidence, because managers are the front door to every other form of support.

2. Find out what people actually know and need Run an anonymous survey before building anything. Ask whether people know what support exists, what they would value, whether they would feel comfortable using it, and what would stop them. Keep questions generic, avoid anything that makes people feel they must share medical information, and focus on impact at work and needs at work.

3. Audit the guidance a manager could use tomorrow Imagine an employee tells her manager menopause is affecting her sleep and asks to change her start time. What would the manager find? Who could they ask? If the answer is not much, add menopause examples to existing absence, flexibility and performance guidance.

4. Pair guidance with practical manager training Give managers space to practise the conversation. Cover what symptoms can look like at work, how to explore what would help without assuming the cause, what they are not expected to do (such as recommending treatment), and where to turn for help.

5. Address the jokes and the silence Challenge comments about women forgetting things or being "at that age". Get a senior leader to talk about it openly. People like Alex read the culture before deciding whether to speak.

6. Check the support works in each job type A fan, a quiet space or a flexible start time may suit a desk role and not a shop floor or production line. Check cover for breaks, access to toilets and sanitary products, and whether colleagues understand any working arrangements without learning anyone's health details.

7. Review it with the employee afterwards Symptoms change. Ask whether the adjustment helps and be ready to change it.

8. Do not rely on one enthusiast Menopause support should not depend on one person's personal interest. Name an owner, get senior sponsorship, give managers time to take part, and put a date on the first conversation.

9. Build the business case with your own data Connect what you find to business consequences, such as lost contribution on key projects and the cost of replacing someone like Alex. Use reliable data you already hold, such as recruitment costs. Take care not to assume that every absence is explained by menopause.

10. Choose actions for your action plan based on need If you are in scope for the plan, use the readiness review to choose actions that fit what your people need, then check the government's requirements separately before publishing. Angela can share a 74-page PDF consolidating the government guidance.

💬 Q&A Highlights

Are there example survey questions in the workbook? (Asked by Adam, answered by Angela) The workbook does not include survey examples, though Angela is happy to help organisations with this. Her advice is to avoid anything that makes people feel they must share medical information, since some people will be happy to share and others will not. Keep questions generic and focus on the organisation and what people need at work, rather than on the individual.

Should you run one survey for everyone, or separate surveys for managers and employees? (Asked by Adam, answered by Angela) It depends on size. Surveys must be anonymous to get honest answers, so be careful where the manager population is small or spread across sites. Most of Angela's surveys have been group-wide. For one early-stage client, she ran the main survey first, then a separate manager survey before training starts, and a follow-up survey after training to see what managers learned and how they felt.

How can a manager raise menopause with someone who has not mentioned it themselves? (Asked by Adam, answered by Angela) One of the most common questions Angela gets. Keep it generic and open. Check in with something like "I've noticed you don't seem yourself at the moment, is there anything I can do to support you?" and make clear you are not judging. The foundation is culture and the manager relationship. If trust has not been built, this is a hard topic to raise. That makes general skills for managers valuable, such as good conversations, empathy and approachability, even beyond menopause-specific training. The best managers usually sense when something is off because they know their team well.

How can organisations capture the full picture across ages without asking people to disclose? (Asked by Niamh, answered by Angela) In a survey, you can capture the age range of respondents, as long as you can never link an individual's answers to their age range. That gives useful insight without disclosure. Natural menopause usually happens between 45 and 55, but perimenopause can start in the late 30s, and people with certain conditions can go through menopause in their teens or 20s. Make no assumptions about age, and include everyone of every age in anything you do. People in their 20s and 30s benefit from understanding this too.