Keep hormones and discrimination in check & payouts will be big.
Sep 22, 2022
Nine overly caffeinated leaders were leaning into a discussion about their less-than-stellar results. Why? “Why are we so far off?” someone asked.
Why is rarely a great question. Cue group rumination fest. It’s the customers. They are too powerful. The market isn’t our friend & hands up who isn’t covering at least one other role right now.
We were avoiding looking in the mirror like a kid dodging “sleep” at a “sleepover”.
VUCA someone said. Say what? The word was thrown on the table just when we were starting to feel better. The business environment was VUCA; it was full of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Yuk.
We were too focused on factors outside our control. “Control the controllables and add value differently became the mantra”.
We learned there are things we can control and things we cannot.
It’s not called a “hormado” for nothing. Consider the menopause transition for women. It’s highly unpredictable in both the short and long term. It’s a time of loss of control for many women. It’s misguided given the rapid pace of hormonal change, that hormones can be “controlled”.
The women inside our community tell it like it is....
Change in hormones affect people in the workplace every day. From exhaustion to lack of focus, extreme heat and waves of anxiety. As in business and leadership, there are many shifting hormone variables throughout menopause.
Today, the number of UK companies facing tribunal and court issues relating to menopause claims has risen by 44% in the last year*
If we don’t do something now to educate our workforce on menopause and how it affects the person suffering the symptoms, their teams & those managing them, then this number will only grow.
Australia is a long way behind the UK, both in the education of our organisations and the number of cases coming to the courts. One can benefit the other if we get ahead of the curve & the hormone comments.
In a recent UK case a 55-year old woman was told by her 29-year old male boss to “not let the hormones get out of control” during a heated company meeting at a tech company. The shortened version of what happened next is that the firm now faces a tribunal, costs and a seriously damaged reputation. Read the full story here….
Is it better to say nothing at all?
Maybe. Without workplace awareness, menopause and women’s health is avoided or confronted without due consideration.
It’s comments like the one above that prevent women opening or asking for support. You can’t tell if she is struggling with symptoms of menopause because she will stay silent and push on. She fears unspoken judgements too and worries she might be overlooked for future opportunities or perceived as weak.
She pushes on at the risk of her health and performance until she can’t. Then she may take sick leave, extended leave or quit her job all together all because of a lack of education and awareness. Both solvable.
Like the woman who reached out and told us she left a long-term highly paid role, about to hit the peak of her career in the oil and gas industry, because she could not cope anymore.
Performance management can be tricky.
In the UK, the tribunal at one ruling related to performance management, said the manager would never have adopted his “bizarre and irrational approach with other non-female-related conditions”.
Don’t let this happen to you.
What can you do?
The best thing you can do is build awareness about what menopause is and how it affects people in the workplace.
That’s the right thing to do. You have a duty of care for your workers’ health and conditions in your workplace. Both physical and psychological health.
There are real risks to be managed to avoid women being mistreated in the workplace. You’ve probably noticed the stigma around menopause is slowly reducing which means women have greater agency. They are more aware of their rights. As an employer, you need to look after yourself too and that cannot just be the domain of HR. They are already kind of busy and we know inclusion sits with each leader.
We applaud companies who are acting. One leader introduced free sanitary products into their workplace after working with us. Another workplace successfully engaged employees in awareness training. Another supported women to participate in our 8-week Program to help professional women understand and reduce the symptoms of menopause. It’s not one-size-fits-all.
"Here at Meno Collective we educate, support and advise businesses on how to become meno friendly via our Menopause Friendly Workplace Accreditation Program™. We provide you with online events, training, webinars, resource guides and the rest of the Meno Collective toolkit so that you can avoid ever being in the same situation as the tech guys."
Ping us an email or drop us a DM and let’s chat…..