Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission stated that employers are legally obligated to make 'reasonable adjustments' for women experiencing menopause symptoms. — Freepik
TWO years ago, Dr Stephanie Faubion stood at the microphone at a meeting of the Menopause Society thinking, “This is going to be a problem.” Someone in the room had asked a question about the challenges of going through menopause in the workplace, and the conversation had turned to ways employers could step in.
Faubion, the organisation’s medical director, worried that asking for additional provisions for women would fuel more gender discrimination – if women required special treatment, employers would have more reason to not hire or promote them.
“What are we going to do, give women a cold room?” she remembers saying.
But in the spring of 2023, she and other researchers published a study on the costs of menopause at the office that helped change her thinking. Women were missing work – US$1.8bil (RM7.7bil) worth of working time each year.Some quit altogether because of menopause. “I was like, all right, we can’t just bury our heads in the sand over this,” Faubion, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health, said. “We’re going to have do something.”
Recently, the Menopause Society rolled out an initiative providing employers with guidance on how to support women going through menopause.It includes tips for managers to talk about menopause at work and policies employers can consider, such as ensuring that the health care plans they offer cover treatment options for menopause symptoms.
A new programme
The programme, called Making Menopause Work, also provides suggestions for making it easier for menopausal employees to get through the workday, including flexible bathroom breaks for those dealing with unpredictable or heavy bleeding, and improving ventilation and using uniforms made with breathable fabrics so that hot flashes are less uncomfortable.
There are talking points workers can bring to their employers and an assessment to gauge how well a workplace responds to menopause.
The initiative is the latest symbol of growing recognition that menopause takes a toll on women in the workplace.
This year, Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission stated that employers are legally obligated to make “reasonable adjustments” for women experiencing menopause symptoms if they are severe enough to amount to a disability.
In 2021, the European Menopause and Andropause Society released its own recommendations urging employers to address menopause in the workplace through measures including explicitly covering menopause in sick-time policies and allowing women in customer-facing jobs to take breaks to manage symptoms like hot flashes.
Some companies in the United States and abroad have started offering menopause-specific benefits.
The question now is whether all this will translate into actual change.
“The cynic in me is like, ‘Yeah, good luck with that,’” Faubion said.
Accommodations for menopausal women in the workplace are few and far between in the United States, said Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the New York University School of Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center. “It’s companies stepping out on their own,” she said.
More awareness
Dr Jewel Kling, a physician and professor of medicine who studies menopause at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, said a critical first step toward improving workplace conditions for women going through menopause is more awareness around what this life stage can look and feel like.
“I think people would say, ‘Yeah, I get hot flashes and night sweats are associated with menopause, but I didn’t expect sleep issues and mood and irritability and all these things to be part of menopause,’” she said.“If we don’t know what menopause is, then how do we know how to address it or take care of it?”
It’s also important to recognise that “menopause is not just a one-and-done kind of experience,” Weiss-Wolf said.
Symptoms last for years and vary from person to person, and they can be more severe for women of color than for white women.
And workplaces themselves are highly individual – it’s harder to take paid time off or sick leave in some jobs than others, for example.“What works, perhaps, in an office complex doesn’t work in a classroom, or doesn’t work for somebody who drives a bus, or doesn’t work for somebody who works behind the counter,” she said.
Dr Chithramali Hasanthika Rodrigo, a researcher studying menopause interventions at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, examined the effectiveness of workplace menopause programmes across the globe in a 2023 review.
She and her co-authors found that providing interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga and work-life coaching significantly improved workers’ symptoms. She said she’s seen a trend toward more accommodations around menopause in the United Kingdom in particular.
“I wouldn’t say it’s happening at every workplace,” she said. “But I see a lot of enthusiasm.” – ©2024 The New York Times Company
