Menopause programme boosted leadership capability and supported women’s midlife health
The Challenge: Supporting the menopause at work
We set ourselves a challenge to ensure that talented females experiencing menopause symptoms stay within the business – despite experiencing challenging times in their personal lives. We wanted to make sure this group of colleagues felt listened to, respected, valued and supported. P&P have helped us to step up to this mark.”
In order to set the foundations, ADM commenced with rolling out their Menopause policy along with their manager and employee guide. Through their Wellness Wednesday communications they started to publish articles and supporting documents around the menopause to try and normalise conversations and support colleagues with speaking up if they needed help. They also set up a menopause support group to give women a safe place to talk and share experiences.
The Approach
From an early stage, ADM understood that menopausal and perimenopause symptoms can have a devastating impact on mental and physical health of both male and female work colleagues. Alongside all the other planned activity with P&P to raise awareness, they the piloted the BUPA menopause plan with 10 of their female colleagues with great success.
The plan allows women to get personalised menopause support from a BUPA GP specially trained in menopause, including an individual care plan. HR now plans to roll this out to all colleagues within the business that require this additional support.
Working in partnership with P&P Coaching, ADM put in motion planned activity to raise awareness of menopause in the workplace by:
setting up a webinar for managers with the aim of ensuring managers are fully informed around understanding what the menopause symptoms may look like; and how to deal with sensitive conversations to ensure they role model fully inclusive and supportive leadership
setting up a webinar for employees to be held on World Menopause Awareness Day, 18th October, with the aim of creating a like-minded, supportive community, where individuals can either listen in or choose to join the discussion about the menopause may be affecting them at work and considering different ways to deal with the challenge
launching the P&P Coaching menopause module for their online portal. The aim of the online portal is to provide tips and information to anyone who wants to find out more about managing potential menopause symptoms at work. The portal module is also home to ADM’s comprehensive and newly-launched policies and guides:
- Menopause policy
- Employee support guide
- Helping your partner through the menopause
- Andropause policy
The Results
The positive impact in the workplace has reverberated well beyond ensuring that ADM retain and attract talented females experiencing menopause symptoms, it’s given everyone the opportunity to get involved and support this previously hidden taboo.
Louise added: “The internal response so far has been fantastic, with 96 managers attending the webinar and a flood of positive comments and feedback around how much the webinar helped raise awareness and understanding in a topic which has not been openly spoken about.
The menopause is a natural part of a woman’s life cycle which will impact all women at some point in their lives. We want to make sure we provide the necessary support for our female colleagues to help them thrive and reach their full potential. It is vital that organisations support women through this (often difficult) period in their life and also educate managers and supervisors to provide the necessary support.”
The HR team are now focused on keeping up the energy around this topic by setting up regular menopause support groups, introducing menopause champions and rolling out the BUPA Menopause plan.
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