Menopause Awareness Month – Are you providing adequate support to your employees?

The new Employment Rights Bill includes a provision whereby employers with 250 or more employees must develop equality action plans that evidence steps they are taking to ensure gender equality within their workplace. As part of this, it specifically refers to the inclusion of support for employees going through menopause.

Menopause can cause a number of significant symptoms, including: low mood, anxiety and heightened stress, depressive symptoms, problems with memory and concentration and sleep disturbances.

As a result of the above symptoms, menopause can have a severe impact on an individual’s ability to carry out work day-to-day, thus presenting not only a health issue, but also a workplace and equality issue.

Whilst currently there aren’t any proactive obligations placed upon employers, it would be wise to get ahead of the curve and implement effective support strategies to combat the issues arising from menopause.

Examples of support strategies employers should consider implementing at this stage include:

• Provision of relevant training to staff to increase awareness, particularly managers and HR team members.
• Creation of a menopause policy to assist HR with managing menopause in the workplace.
• Signposting employees to external support services such as: employee assistance programmes, private healthcare and/or mental health resources.
• Consider any workplace adjustments that could be made to facilitate employees suffering from the symptoms of menopause/perimenopause, such as remote working or amendments to the uniform policy.

Comment

It is advisable for employers to consider implementing as many of the above steps as possible, irrespective of any legal duty to make reasonable adjustments, to encourage a more inclusive workforce.

If you’d like any assistance or further advice on any of the above support strategies, please get in touch with a member of the Employment Team who will be happy to help.