Menopause in the Workplace

So, um, Deborah, menopause action plans.

Hurrah, hurrah.

The menopause has become recognized as a workplace, [laughs] as a workplace responsibility.

Finally, it's be- going to become mandatory for organizations with over 250 employees to publish a menopause action plan by spring, uh, by April 2027.

But we need to encourage everybody to start thinking about it now, don't we?

Uh, yes, we do.

I mean, y- we're all saying hurrah, aren't we? Because, of course, um, the Labor's manifesto Make Work Pay had a huge chunk on menopause in the workplace.

Uh, and a lot's happened, and I mentioned the ping-ponging between the houses and where we've ended up now with the passing of the Employment Rights Act.

And yes, you're right.

Um, with effect from, well, it's actually next month that they expect the portal to be live.

There was further information that came out this month around International Women's Day to give a certain amount of guidance.

Now, I'm going to say a little bit of a change of wording, um, because they were referring to action plans on gender equality and supporting employees through menopause.

Do you know, I can't make an acronym of that.

[laughs]

So I'm, I'm still going to use the term menopause action plans.

But actually, the broader title, if you like, I think is an interesting one because I was part of the stakeholder groups while they were being developed, and I think there was a greater appreciation that not everything that gets in the way of a woman's career is relating to menopause.

So, you know, there was talk about, uh, menstruation, endometriosis, caring responsibilities.

So I'm kind of probably gonna surprise you by saying I'm actually pleased that it's broadened out, but retained the focus on menopause as part of the, if you like, the, the, the things organizations can do to demonstrate that they're working on gender equality.

And the sort of expectations and the things that this is absolutely not, it's not a tick box exercise at all.

So you're not going to be doing, as you said earlier, Ruth, uh, "Yay, I've got my menopause ac- uh, I've got my policy, I've got my line manager training.

I've done this and I've done that." Their expectation is that you're demonstrating that it's actually having an impact.

So I think that is really beneficial.

I think the thing that surprised more people when we were on the, um, big session that we ran very, very recently, and it was a question I asked when we were in the stakeholder groups around, "Well, who's checking it?" Um, you know, 'cause we li- we like to see quality.

I'm not interested in somebody ticking a box and saying they've done a training session and thinking they're going to change hearts and mind.

It's never gonna work, is it? Um, so we were sort of looking at it and saying, "Well, okay then, let's see this in action," and who's checking who, what, what organizations are putting.