Why ‘Menopause Action Plans’ bring me out in a hot flush

“Menopause isn’t quite casual office talk yet… but it should be.”  So nattered a LinkedIn post (you’ve got to love LinkedIn!), about how large companies have to have a ‘Menopause Action Plan’ in place by 2027.

You’d think this was a seminal ask, judging by the number of in-depth ‘menopause at work’ seminars that have started showing at a workplace near you.  From what I’ve seen, a lot of these seminars are held by companies with cutesy names, like “Menopause Mastery” or “Pause for Thought”.

(Fun).

Except… the legislation itself amounts to no more than a vague requirement to publish “equality action plans” that deal with menopause and the gender pay gap.

So, if you run a business that employs more than 250 people, you merely have to write out the “steps (you) are taking in relation to (your) employees…”  But this doesn’t have to be very much at all.  You could probably get away with a one-pager.  A short, earnest statement about the importance of gender equality at work, followed by a few vague bullet points about “regular reviews”, “open conversations”, and the “signposting of further support”.

My guess is that’s exactly what a lot of (middle-aged-male-led) companies will do.  Others will go the whole, messy hog.   They’ll appoint “menopause champions” and hold one of those terrible-sounding seminars.  Then they’ll write a mostly meaningless, doorstop-sized policy-book on the subject.

Truth be told, I hate the sound of both these approaches.  They make me glad not to have to work in an office anymore.

I’m a perimenopausal woman who’s exceedingly glad she’s no longer in charge of HR.  If I were, I’d have to implement the Menopause Action Plan myself, and that would be excruciating.  Colleagues might look at me and wonder which symptoms I’ve got, or whether I’m on HRT (and if not, why not?).  I’d be terrified of making a mistake, or having to leave a meeting early.  There would be “casual office talk” about brain fog and hot flushes, which in my experience absolutely are “casual office talk” already.

I’d like to feel I could talk to someone at work about menopausal symptoms, if they were so bad that they’d started affecting my job.  But I wouldn’t need anyone at work to understand “the science bit” in order to offer me support.  And I shudder at the very thought of talking to a (ghastly-sounding) “menopause champion”, if for no other reason than I would not get on with anyone who took that title seriously.

Half the issue with menopause is that you don’t always know if something – say, an anxiety attack – is a symptom of it or not.  I’d only want to feel that if I have an anxiety attack at work, I’d be offered non-judgmental help.  The same help as any of my colleagues going through the same thing (menopausal or not) would be.  That might mean working flexibly, or taking time off to arrange a doctor’s appointment.

The marvellous Aubrey Gordon talks about fat people being only that to doctors.  Fat people.  You seek help for a broken finger, and you’re automatically given a weight-loss lecture.

I don’t want everything that happens to me after 45 to be lumped into an amorphous ‘menopause mass’. (What an image!).  I’d rather not have to make – or hear – endless self-deprecating jokes about “menopause brain”.  I don’t want to be seen only as “a menopausal woman”, at work or at home.  It’s just a transitional life stage, same as puberty was back in the mists of time.  Yes, sometimes it’s painful and terrifying.  But from a work point of view, all I want are trust, empathy and support for any personal issues that affect my job.

We’re all entitled to that, aren’t we?

I know the well-meaning purpose of a Menopause Action Plan is to help safeguard women’s jobs.  I just don’t think it will work.

Companies who genuinely care about their staff as people won’t need a Menopause Action Plan to offer support.  They’ll just offer it.

Companies that don’t care about their staff will pay lip service to the Menopause Action Plan.  Then they’ll find sneaky ways to oust those people anyway.  As a former HR manager, you can trust me on that.