Menopause Policy & Awareness Online Workshop for Employers
Time: 09:30 - 16:15 GMT
Cost & Date TBC
A recent survey estimated that over one million women will leave their jobs this year because of employers failing to support them properly during the menopause.
In the context of post-Covid struggles to recruit and retain staff, smart employers know that this key workforce segment is to be nurtured; inclusive and flexible working will ensure organisations avoid the punitive costs of losing experience and the associated recruitment training and reputational costs associated with a poor menopause policy.
Part of our long-standing and ground-breaking menopause training, this comprehensive course tackles the issue head-on, encouraging conversation and exploration, as well as spelling out the potential consequences of getting it wrong, and what needs to be in a watertight policy.
With compassion and humour, delegates will explore the issues and learn the best ways to recognise and accommodate physical and emotional symptoms, initiate and manage sensitive conversations. Live conversations, case studies and discussion groups as well as in-depth practical sessions will equip attendees with the resources and confidence to ensure their organisation remains an employer of choice in today’s challenging recruitment and retention climate.
Platform: Zoom - An encrypted zoom platform with password access:
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For over 25 years, our established virtual conferences and webinars have attracted large audiences of high-level HR decision-makers.
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Which functions will benefit from attending
- HR, Health and Safety, Business Continuity Planning, Occupational Health, Contingency and Business Continuity Planning, Recruitment, Resourcing, Legal & Compliance, Line Management, Employee Relations, Security, Risk, Compliance, Strategy, Operations, and all directors and staff with responsibilities within this area.
Schedule
Welcome and introduction to the day
Ice-breaker and learning objectives
Interactive session: Understanding menopause challenges in the workplace
- 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?
Menopause – A clinic for those involved in producing and implementing policy
- The impact of menopause on the body: sleep, diet, symptom management
- Helping strategies
- Workplace adaptions and adjustments
- When OH referrals might help
- 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
Comfort break
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
- Pay gap issues: removing barriers to progression for older women
- Writing and implementing a menopause-specific policy
- Sickness absence procedures
- Flexible working arrangements
- Frequency of breaks
- Risk assessment of the workplace under Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992
- What should be included?
- How do you ensure it’s implemented and understood company-wide?
- Case histories and lessons learned
- A blueprint
Distilling the wisdom: A guided exchange of key experiences, strategies and support in the workplace
Delegates will work in breakouts to identify key issues and potential solutions to feed back to the whole group. 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.
lunch
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
- Uniform policy
- 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
- Champions and allies – setting up, terms of reference, training and awareness-raising
- Training line managers and raising awareness internally
Workshop: 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?
Comfort break
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.
Wrap and outstanding questions
End of workshop
Contact us to book or discuss our events & services
01983 861133
info@bfi.co.uk
Event supported by
Launched back in 2004, Mindful Employer is a UK wide initiative run by Devon Partnership NHS Trust. Providing employers with easy access to professional workplace mental health training, information and advice; our goal is to help empower organisations – large or small – to take a lead in supporting the mental wellbeing of staff.