Menopause in the Workplace

Introduction

With menopausal women making up a sixth of the UK workforce, organisations need to acknowledge that they are a crucial demographic. It is now becoming obvious that a supportive culture of understanding and inclusivity which makes life easier for menopausal women can profit your organisation by: reducing time off work; ensuring experienced employees are not needlessly leaving their jobs; and increasing productivity. Employers must ensure they are up to speed with the Equality Act 2010. It is also essential that employers understand their specific obligations towards menopausal employees.

The programme content can be adapted to meet your specific organisational challenges and training needs. Each course can be adapted for a briefing or can be combined to create a full-day session. 

These training programmes explain why the issue of menopause is relevant to your organisation. You will examine how recognising and supporting your menopausal colleagues could position you as an employer of choice, reduce staff turnover, and retain valuable and experienced staff.

Menopause training learning outcomes

By the end of your menopause training you will:

• Be aware of the cost of discriminatory practices on the UK economy
• Understand which policies to implement
• Understand why retaining menopausal women is advantageous to your organisation

Delegate feedback 

"Over the past year, BFI have supported us with the delivery of several Menopause workshops. We were nervous around bringing this topic into the workplace, especially not knowing how our employees would respond. However, BFI took the time to understand our business and where we are on the journey and developed a bespoke agenda for the workshops.

It’s been fantastic getting to know Elizabeth and Catherine during this time. Catherine has been great at managing our last min requests and changes and always approaches this with ease and flexibility.

Elizabeth is a passionate facilitator and her frank an open style of delivery helped our employees feel understood and heard. The workshops have given us the confidence to develop our own Menopause support group and guidance document.

For those looking to organise workshops or speaker events, I would highly recommend BFI." - Stephanie Freeland, HR Business Partner, UKAS 

Course 1: Understanding menopause challenges in the workplace

Interactive session for management and line managers: Policy and Practice

• Why support menopausal women? The business and moral case?
• Quantifying the positives: productivity, reduced absence, loyalty, building your brand as an inclusive employer, reducing recruitment costs, minimizing the risks of workplace tribunals
• What is menopause and how does it affect your female employees
• Physical, psychological and other symptoms and how they affect women both in and out of the workplace
• What are the symptoms and their effects inside and outside work?
• How can women be supported in the workplace: what help do they need and how can you make it easy to ask?

Legal updates and obligations

• Understanding and meeting your legal requirements to support menopausal staff
• Menopause under the Equalities Act 2010
• Your legal duties to avoid age and gender discrimination
• Flexible working arrangements
• Frequency of breaks
• What should be included?
• How do you ensure it’s implemented and understood company-wide?
• Case histories and lessons learned
• A blueprint

Discussion: Practical and workable strategies

• Why is the issue relevant and key to our organisation?
• Understanding the issues and communicating them internally and externally
• Practical workplace solutions: what to implement and why
• Starting the conversation with colleagues who have no experience of the issue
• Raising awareness without ranting!
• Practical measures: what works and why?

Roleplay and interactive session: Instigating and managing difficult conversations

Using resources and prompts, delegates will role-play menopause workplace conversations, feeding key findings back to the group and identifying best approaches to include in policy and guidance.

Course 2a: Becoming a menopause champion workshop

A half-day course examining the issue of menopause in the workplace how Champions can influence the experience of menopausal colleagues and how this can reflect in the organisation as an employer of choice and support diversity and inclusion initiatives.

• Welcome and learning objectives
• The impact of menopause on the body: sleep, diet, symptom management
• Helping strategies
• Workplace adaptions and adjustments
• HRT, alternative medications, natural treatments, lifestyle and workplace changes, self-help alternatives hypnotherapy, CBT
• What can we do in the workplace?
• Exercise, stress relief, mindfulness and meditation, networks, making information available to all
• Managing stress, brain fog: how do you support female colleagues?
• Myths and misconceptions
• Being a champion: signposts and support
• Discussion: what makes a champion? Who can champion menopause in the workplace and how? Conversations and communication; raising awareness, networks and projects

 Reviewing existing policies and frameworks

• What could help in terms of the physical and psycho-social work environment changes and adjustments
• Guidance documentation – what could be included
• Adapting existing sickness and flexible working policies
• Extra resources: links and recommended reading
• Communication and talking about menopause at work
• Evidence-based interventions: Self-help for women and line manager training
• Workplace culture and occupational health awareness campaigns
• Ensuring you are sending positive messages, let’s discuss the upsides!
• Champions and allies – setting up, terms of reference, training and awareness-raising
• Training line managers and raising awareness internally

Course 2b: Conversations for menopause champions 

Relaxed, 2-hour round-table discussion/breakout sessions to let the Champions put into practice the learnings from session B.

A company-wide invitation to open the debate and awareness-raising across the organisation, allowing a non-judgemental space to learn and discuss the optimum ways of supporting menopausal colleagues. We can supply templates for invitations and will facilitate and support the Champions in their new roles during the conversations.

Key issues covered:

• Distilling the wisdom: A guided exchange of key experiences, strategies and support in the workplace
• Delegates will examine the myths and realities of the menopause and what it means for working women
• Working in groups with a champion, delegates will identify key issues and potential solutions to feed back to the company.
• Small numbers and an inclusive environment will foster a wide range of exchanges and discussion.
• Emphasis will be on sharing experiences, both menopausal and management in order to maximise learning, empathy and solution-finding.

Make an in-house enquiry 

Click here to fill in our enquiry form or to have a confidential discussion about your requirements, please contact Catherine Ouston our Head of In-house Training on 01983 861133 or email Teamtraining@bfi.co.uk