Supporting Menopause in the Workplace: Employer Responsibilities and Legal Considerations

Menopause has been making steady waves in the considerations required for an employer over the last three to four years. Previously, it was just seen as something that only older women go through, natural and something that nobody could do anything about. There have been some remarkable advances in awareness of this being much more than just a woman going through a hormonal change at a certain time in their life.

To truly understand why it’s important to consider menopause and its effects in the workplace, we must break it down to the Health and Safety at Work Act and the laws concerning equality.

The Equality Act and Menopause

The Equality Act assesses that a disability could be something that has an impact on a person’s day-to-day life and is likely to last up to or over a year. When we look at menopause, and we think that most women go through this, we don’t necessarily consider how it could be comparable to a disability. Although Menopause is not necessarily a disability, we must remember that the symptoms and side effects that can be experienced by individuals could be disabling, and therefore we must treat it on that same level.

From an equality perspective, only biological women can go through menopause, not every woman, but ONLY women. That means if menopause or its symptoms result in a certain decision or treatment in the workplace, depending on its application, could be discriminatory.

Now, things such as brain fog may come across as a bit of a laughable matter, “Look at me. I forgot my keys again. It must be because I’m in menopause”, but when it comes to something a little bit more serious for example, “Janice, why are we chasing a payment hasn’t been made to a supplier.” We usually question is this a skill, a will or a behaviour?

With menopause, it could be none of the above. It could be a side effect of what they’re going through. As such, where an employer fails to consider the impacts of Menopause, resulting in managing it as a behaviour, they could be risking successful Sex and Disability discrimination claims.

In terms of menopause, the considerations that we need to put in place are the same as if you were supporting a member of staff who had a protected characteristic, and you were going through a normal well-being support process. Similarly to mental ill health, if it was an illness that you could see, the reasonable adjustment may be more obvious. When it comes to menopause, some of the side effects and symptoms women go through are often invisible, things such as the atypical hot flushes and the brain fog, it can be easy to overlook adjustments that can support these symptoms in the workplace.

Reasonable Adjustments

Reasonable adjustments and individuals should be considered through completing a risk assessment. Common outcomes could be to ensure that somebody has access to a fan, plenty of hot and cold water, and making sure that they are able to take a regular break away from their screen. Other side effects may call for more complex and unique adjustments, for example, if they wear PPE, you might need to make accommodations to change the fabric to ensure its cooler for them or provide additional breaks so they can have time to change clothing. All these kinds of things we should be considering on our risk assessment, ensuring we look at the health and safety elements, both physical and the mental.

When a woman goes through menopause, it’s not always about, “Oh, just take some HRT and you’ll be all right”, it’s about a hormone imbalance, the fight between oestrogen and testosterone in a person’s body. Medication can help, but it doesn’t all the time, and not all women are given the choice to take HRT. We need to consider that this can be a scary and daunting time for women and can lead to depression and anxiety. So, when we complete our risk assessments, and we have a female member of staff who comes to us and says, “Look, I’m going through menopause, I’m struggling”, one of the important things that we need to consider is how that is impacting them from a mental perspective.

From a change in perspective, what can an employer do to make sure that effects of the menopause in the workplace are minimised? In the example of brain fog mentioned earlier, how do we ensure a supplier invoice mistake doesn’t happen again?

• Could it be that we have to adjust the way that they’re doing their work?

• Could it mean that we have to put in things, that might seem obvious to some people, like to-do lists or checklists?

It may be something that seems alien because a member of staff could have been with you for 20 years and may have never needed this support before, but now they suddenly do. We just have to take each case as it comes about and make sure that we’re discussing exactly how their menopause is impacting them, similarly to mental ill health, menopause affects people in many ways.

Another thing to remember is that it doesn’t just happen to women of a certain age. We can have menopause impact us as a result of early-age hysterectomies, endometriosis, polycystic ovaries, infertility, and much more. So, making sure that you create a route for employees to openly communicate and ask for support is important.

We need to keep records of the adjustments, and we need to review them regularly.

Putting in reasonable adjustments to support a woman in menopause doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always going to be this way forever. The risk assessments and those reasonable adjustments you put in place must be communicated and reviewed regularly. The only person who can give you a dynamic risk review will be the employee. So, involving them in this journey of assessment and trying to support them, they are the centre of this, and you need to be governed by them.