Let's talk menopause

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so good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's cipd webinar on let's talk
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menopause marking international menopause awareness day earlier this week my name is daphne d de green i'm
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head of cipd northern england and delighted to be hosting this session for you today and it's great to see so many
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of you joining still joining now we've had over um 950 registrations today so
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this is obviously a topic of huge importance and really reflects um some
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of the the challenges and some of the opportunities that we have to to support women and in the workplace so and thank
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you very much for joining us today um so the aim of today's session is really to explore how uh people
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professionals and line managers can better support colleagues and going through the menopause and we have three
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great speakers with different perspectives who can share their insight and their advice with you today so i'm
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absolutely delighted to have a great panel of experts with us today we've got rachel suff who's the senior policy
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advisor at cipd we've got carolyn harris who's the mp for swansea east and also
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the chair of the appg on menopause and we've got janet trouse head of hr at
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network rail and so a really great panel and who will share as i've said share
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case studies and information with you today so thank you all to our speakers and for
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giving up your time and supporting this session today and before i get started there's some um
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housekeeping i need to go through with you so the session will be recorded and be available on demand and at the end of
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today and if you've gone to the cipd webinar page on our site you'll be able to access
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this session all the previous of the sessions and sign up for future ones too and we will keep you muted throughout
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the session this is a very big big session as you can imagine so um please use the chat function to share
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observations and network with others and we won't be monitoring the chat function if you want to ask questions to our
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panel please use the q a function at the bottom of your screen so the chat function very much about that working
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and q a is where we will pick up your questions and i will try my best to get through as many as possible um on
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today's call so very quickly and before we get started i just want to remind our
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members of all the great um resources that we have available and as you as we
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always remind you the kronos coronavirus hub is still available for you you can also access um the
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individual legal line so you can call hr inform helpline 24 7 and
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a reminder to cipd members in the uk and ireland that you have access to the new well-being hub and so together with an
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award-winning um workplace provider health assured we're now providing all of our members and with some great um uh
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help um uh for for your own well-being so 24 7 helpline 365 days a year and you
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can access that by telephone and also access um qualified therapists as well through
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online consultation so um and then finally actually and and um
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related to today's session we are continuously updating our um hub um and
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uh resources on the cipd website and we have created a menopause topic page so
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dedicated menopause resource page hosting all the kind of practical guidance and support materials to really
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help you break the stigma around menopause at work so please take a look at that and included in that
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are some great tools and techniques for line managers as well so the line management toolkit um also um available
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okay so and we'll get started with a session just to kind of set some context the menopause is a natural stage
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of life experienced by most women yet it remains a taboo subject in many of our
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organizations and our recent research found that six and ten women age 45 to
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55 who are experiencing the menopause said it had a negative impact on them at work and further research and suggests
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almost a million women in the uk have left their jobs completely because of menopausal symptoms so this is a huge
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challenge and one that you know as a profession we absolutely have a gift to kind of navigate and support um our
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colleagues who are managing menopausal symptoms so that's really the purpose today is to give you as much information
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and insight and so that we can keep the conversation going and really help and and you may be aware and that we're also
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supporting and women through the transition um of menopause pause through
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um a manifesto that we we launched um this week um and we're at the houses of
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parliament so um a really important topic for us here at cipd
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so i'm going to quickly uh go through the running order and rachel stuff is going to speak first followed by um
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carolyn harris and then on to janet trails to end the session and we'll probably have
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presentations for about 40 minutes probably maximum 40 minutes and then the
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rest of the session will be dedicated to your questions so please and as i said before use the q a function and we will
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get as many of those answered as possible so i'm going to hand over to rachel to
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kick off the session thank you very much rachel thanks stephanie and hi everyone so so
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pleased to be here during awareness month talking about the menopause and i think the title of this
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session is so appropriate let's talk menopause because as daphne said there is still a lot of taboo around the
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menopause transition at work and that's really what we want to change and i
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think things are really starting to change so that's fantastic but that's
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why three years ago we embarked on this project um at the
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cipd and we worked with experts our members
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organizations like janet net network rail and
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experts as well to develop guidance around the menopause and we also
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launched the manifesto for the menopause at work in parliament and carolyn was with us in parliament that day so really
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delighted she's here too yes we developed a whole suite of guidance for hr employers and line
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managers and so on to provide better support there's so much happening at the
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moment around the menopause there's a real spotlight on the issue by mps which
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is fantastic we've just responded at the cipd 2 inquiries we really want to build on that momentum
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that is there and also we have just signed we helped to launch but also signed as
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an employer the menopause workplace pledge so some of you might have seen that
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now just moving on to the next slide to rewind just slightly
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what is the menopause because on one level of course we all know what it is i thought i did when i embarked on this
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project and i quickly realized that actually i didn't know very much at all about the
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menopause how much do we really know about the different symptoms how it can impact
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how it can impact on our interaction with work i realized when i started working on the project that i'd been
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pairing menopausal for years really but i just hadn't joined up all those dots like i just
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really hadn't realized and i think of myself as someone who's quite well informed so i think that's a reflection of the the
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real gap that has been in society generally about the menopause
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so that translates into the workplace as well now just briefly it is a very na it's a
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natural part of aging it typically happens between the age of 45 and 55 but
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not exclusively at all it's when women's hormone levels start to decline you stop
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having periods and it is best described as a transition because it can go on for
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many years the average is around four years but as i've said on the on the bottom the slide there it can last up to
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12 years and we also have the peri menopause which is what i realized i was
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experiencing and that that's the transition the phase leading up to the menopause
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and you can experience a very wide range of symptoms as a result of the menopause and
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perimenopause over 30 different symptoms and again i was very taken aback by the
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number that you can experience and as we uh can see on the next slide
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lots of different symptoms but when we carried out some research of working women experiencing menopause transition
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the three main ones were hot flushes sleep disturbances and night sweats
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now some women sail through the menopause a couple of my friends absolutely no
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impact i've hardly noticed it and and good luck to them fantastic but around
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three quarters of people do experience symptoms and around a quarter
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of those experience severe symptoms and these can really have such a big impact
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and be so debilitating and of course you don't leave those symptoms at home
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you take them into work as well and there can be psychological
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so anxiety depression memory loss panic attacks and then physical
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irregular periods heavy bleeding weight gain muscle and joint stiffness and so
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on and i think a key point about the symptoms is that they can change so i have one set of symptoms at one point
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and then another set and because they fluctuate so much they can be very unpredictable and you don't
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know how you're going to feel on any given day now if we move on i think daphne mentioned this but six
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and ten menopausal women told us that their symptoms did
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have a negative impact on them at work and on the next slide we look a bit more
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in detail in that at that so how have the particular symptoms have
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affected them and i have to say i've experienced most of these less able to concentrate feeling more
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stress less patience more pressure making mistakes at work and some
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women have to take time off sick so if we move on i want to now just
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focus briefly on why is the menopause a workplace issue i think what i've said
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already is compelling enough for employers to take the menopause transition seriously but
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also there's a really strong business case four million women
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in that typical age bracket for menopause transition in work
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really significant growing part of the labor market which makes it a key recruitment and retention
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issue so important that employers can tap into that female talent think of all the
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skill shortages that we've got at the moment very often we're at the peak of
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our skills our experience our careers with many many years to go at work so it
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just doesn't make sense to press pause and be disadvantaged because of
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something that is not a natural stage of our life of aging and then of course there's a strong
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compliance case the duty of care for people's health and well-being that employers have
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the um the equality act must discriminate of course um in terms
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of disability age sex so that's there we've seen more
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employment tribunal cases but aside from all that it's just the right thing to do to support people
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going through what is a natural stage of life and what is a health issue
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so if we move on i just wanted to flag this other finding from our research a couple of years ago
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because we found that of those women who were unable to go to work at some
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point because of their symptoms only a quarter of them felt able to discuss the real
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reason for their absence with their line manager and i think that does highlight
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the silence that still exists hopefully that figure will have improved now
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because i think there is more openness more awareness in a lot of
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uh parts of life including in the workplace but i think it's so important that that
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conversation between the individual between the line manager happens in a wider context of a culture that
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talks openly about the menopause calls out explicit support
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line managers as awareness for everybody in the organization because that will lay
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the right working environment for that conversation to happen so if we just move on i just
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want to talk very briefly now and highlight just the main areas that organizations
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can focus on to create that menopause friendly workplace and i think it does start with opening
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up the culture as i've just mentioned enabling those conversations to happen
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i didn't remember until i started working on this project at the cipd
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i didn't have a conversation about the menopause at work and there's a lot of
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women working in our organisation and a lot of my friends are women going
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through the menopause as well and it changed so quickly once we
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started to raise awareness and provide information that taboo i
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think you'll be really surprised at how quickly it starts to break down and how it's
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welcomed and not just by women by men as well because it isn't just a female
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issue our menopause champion at the cipd is a man our
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public affairs manager couldn't find someone who's more passionate and interested in the topic
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so then secondly as well as well as the culture and starting to talk about the menopause it really does mean having
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those making sure that your policies um and your support for health and
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well-being are explicit around the menopause whether that's specific policy or
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whether you embed it in guidance and all your existing health and well-being support
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it's up to your organization to develop the framework that works best for you
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but it is an occupational health issue it should be treated as an ongoing fluctuating health condition and so it's
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just meaning that you embed it right across your inclusion and diversity occupational
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health health and well-being policies as well and i do want to call out the importance
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of absence management policies as part of that framework making sure that they're fair and flexible that you don't
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have a kind of trigger system that really in practice can unfairly penalize
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somebody who's experiencing those fluctuating symptoms and might need to take time off
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unexpectedly as well and then finally educate and train line
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managers so that they can have that conversation so that people can
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disclose the real reason for their absence because managers play such an important role we
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know for all health and well-being conversations and support they're like the gateway they should know what
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policies and support could be helpful also the kind of relationship that
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somebody has with their land manager is it based on trust is your line manager empathetic does he or she listen
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the more confident a manager will feel and educated about the menopause the
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less embarrassed uh that line manager will be about having a conversation the more approachable
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uh that individual bit will be as well so that that really does lay the basis
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and then knowledge about the practical adjustments that can be helpful as well
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and i think that's key to supporting people with menopause at work the sort
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of changes that you can make our mantra when we were developing the guidance and
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it still is really that is that making small changes can make a huge
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difference and sometimes it can be as simple as a desk fan tweaking start
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and finish times and so on so um these kind of approaches have the
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potential to really transform the experience of so many women's work
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in life it just makes sense for organizations to embrace
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menopause friendly workplaces thank you
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thank you rachel um great insight and i can i can feel your passion coming through you know it's a hugely important
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topic and you know what you said about the line management role and the fundamental role of of supporting my
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manager managers through this is is really critical so um thank you so much and i'm sure there'll be questions
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coming through and just a reminder but you're all very quiet there we've got any questions do do remember to post
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your questions in the q a um box if you want to and so on to our next speaker and we've got carolyn
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harris so over to you carolyn thank you hi everyone and one absolute pleasure to
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be here and to um to chat to you about my um my thoughts
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on the menopause and actually i'm going to go a bit broader than rachel and talk about
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something that we've started over the last couple of months and that's actually called the menopause revolution with all revolutionaries around and
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we've got badges and we've got banners and we've got posters and the reason why we're doing this is that for i've been a
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member of parliament since 2015 and we've talked about the menopause in this
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place every international and global menopause day week month whatever it is
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we have a debate and actually we've got that debate this afternoon so i'm going to be talking in that well i'm leading
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on that debate this afternoon and we talk about it and everybody's really supportive and everybody's got really
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interesting things to say and then we don't talk about it again until the following international or global
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menopause day week or month whatever and i've been quite frustrated by that
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because i felt that menopause doesn't just happen on one day of the year menopause is with women forever it's for
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life there's women before us and behind us and they've experienced the menopause it's 2021
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why have we not been talking about this more often and i'll tell you why because it's been
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a taboo subject and people have been afraid to talk about it if you think about periods it's not that long ago
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that we started using the word periods they happened they were always going to happen they're always going to happen so
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why have we not talked about them and my recollection of the menopause and some people may be late to this was watching
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les dawson on his comedy show having a conversation with roy barracliffe over
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the fake garden wall dressed as women where one of them pushed their
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fake breast up and said she's on the change making out like it was some well it was
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funny at the time it's less funny now but it's just
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a situation that we found ourselves in that we are terrified to talk about things we're embarrassed by them we are
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ashamed of it to some extent are we terrified of offending people i'm sorry guys but vaginal dryness is a
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real thing it happens when you have menopause it happens to the best of us
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but it happens why are we afraid to say these things and
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i can remember a conversation have it happening between my mother and her sisters when one of them was
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obviously going through a menopause and they were terrified that i would over hear this conversation and they
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asked me to leave the room and i was 36 you know i was not so young and naive that i couldn't hear
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it my mother never talked to me about periods so it's no surprise in 2010
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when i had a big gynecological operation and then sunk into a depression that i
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ended up on antibiotic i studied antibiotics i wished antidepressants and i ended up on antidepressants for 11
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years because i told my doctor that i was having a nervous breakdown i'd had a tragedy in my life in 1989
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when my son i lost my son in a road accident and hadn't taken anti-depressants then so i convinced
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myself that that was related to the way i was feeling you know 21 years later and that maybe now is the
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time for me to grieve so i ended up taking anti antidepressants and i'm still on anti-depressants and i'm on
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them because when i took them in 2010 i ended up in a pink anorak with my hood
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up sitting in a chair unable to go even outside the front door and do any shopping so low did i go
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but i thought i was having a nervous breakdown and i realized probably about three years ago i've been talking having been
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made the decision that i was going to say to people this is what i'm experiencing what the hell is wrong with
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me why am i feeling this why am i feeling that and other people saying oh god i've got that oh god i've got that oh i can't believe
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that you're saying you're saying what i'm feeling i realized that i hadn't been depressed
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i was menopausal but i've been i diagnosed myself and identity that being
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dependent i suppose on antidepressants and
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part of the reason why we don't talk about it is because we don't understand it we don't know we don't know that when
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we are not linking this symptom with that system symptom with our system but it's not just us who
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don't recognize it doctors don't recognize it because 41 of
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medical schools don't even have training on menopause on the curriculum so if i'm
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not demonizing doctors what i'm saying is if you haven't given that doctor the tools the resources to understand
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something that affects 51 percent of the population then there's something drastically wrong
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there so the situation you find is that a woman will present with one ailment and she'll get sent for consultant tests
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for one thing maybe fibromyalgia maybe you'll early onset dementia maybe osteoporosis all these different things
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to them to discover well she's traveling on that it must be depression so we put it on
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antidepressants the truth is doctors haven't got the tools to link to
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join the dots if you like a b c and d therefore you have thousands and thousands of women out
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there who are either not got any support at all having medication for a symptom they haven't got
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or completely and utterly lost as to where they go next and when i start these conversations with women sometimes
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there's a little bit like a light bulb goes on in their eyes because i talk about the symptoms and they'll say
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god that happened to me i'm experiencing that it shouldn't be us telling each other
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this should be a better system that people are recognizing what the issue is i'm not saying it comes down to
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the employers but i think if employers had more information if we as women had
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more information if people in schools actually learned something about it if the medical schools paid it the
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attention it was deserving what a much better world it would be that we all acknowledge the fact that menopause is
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not something we can brush under the carpet it happens to 51 of the population and we've got to stop
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pretending that it doesn't exist or if we don't talk about it it will go away we talk about puberty we talk about
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periods why aren't we talking about the menopause everybody will know someone who at some point in their life
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will be menopausal now where we are at the moment is um i
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wanted to set up a parliamentary group to specifically talk about menopause
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i wanted to get companies in which we did yesterday and cipd our network were both with us where we talked to good
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companies who were doing good work and leave them share their experience and then with the hope that this will
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filter down and other companies will get involved i mean nobody can fail to be absolutely over
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the moon with what temperatures have done this week simpsons this week have said that they will pay for their
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employees hrt um prescriptions that's massive
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to talk about hrt very well and i'll see very few because i don't know exactly how many but the
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number of women who are actually getting prescriptions for hrt is
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nothing in compared to how many women need prescriptions for hrt and that's
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because doctors are not recognizing that women are actually in need of hrt or are
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reluctant to prescribe hrt because of myths previously which have since been
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disproved but still are out in the ether that hrt is dangerous
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from what i've seen those who are vulnerable to um the risk of hrt would have been
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vulnerable to to cancers with or without the hrt but that message is not
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filtering through so some doctors are reluctant to actually prescribe it then you have the situation where when
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you do get prescribed it very often you will have two packets with two hormones in each packet those
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hormones in each packet it's chargeable on a prescription per hormone so four
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hormones cost you nearly 40 quid so i was having a conversation with a
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with a colleague because i got drawn for what they call a private member's bill which means that once every
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parliamentary year you get you you've got a fairly good chance of getting something through legislation and i
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wanted to do something on the menopause and originally i wanted to do something about workplace practices i wanted to
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make sure there was mandatory policies i wanted to make sure there was better education i've got a shopping list like
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this hence why we call it the revolution but i realized that in the short space of time that you get to actually get a
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private members bill through getting through all the things i'd like to have seen happening wasn't going to happen
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and retrospectively i believe that the best policies are those that are grown
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from within and they meet the needs of the works workforce rather than a blanket policy
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that everybody adopts leaves in the drawer and doesn't actually look at again and doesn't really do anything for
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the women who need it so we were looking at all the things that we could do and nothing was nothing hit me or something that was going to be
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doable in the time frame i had until we started talking about hrt and a
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colleague said it would have costed a 40 quid and it was a bit like a light bulb moment because i live in wales i don't
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pay for prescriptions and i suddenly realized that the only women in this country will pay for prescriptions are
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people living in england so people women in england are not a double disadvantage not only they struggling with the
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menopause and getting a prescription when they do get them they've got to pay for something that we get for free and wills
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so that's why i went for a private members bill on support services and resources for
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women through the menopause and put as my number one ask free prescriptions for
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women in england and that bill goes through next week but the real impact of doing that has
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made the world and i mean the world look at the uk government and see that
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there's actually a conversation going on here that the uk government is looking at
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providing better services and resources for women women posing and that means
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that they did they in the spotlight at the moment that if they don't do it then the
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world will be quite disappointed but they won't be off as bloody disappointed that as a 13 million women in this
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country or menopausal or those who are going to turn up outside um
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put up parliament next friday brain further um
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and actually be disappointed that we've not done the right thing so
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the emphasis up until now and going forward has been we have to convince this government and we have to convince
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medical schools and we have to convince employers and we have to convince schools and we have to give them all the tools and the resources to make sure
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that they put menopause on an agenda and they put menopause high up on the agenda that we talk about
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it we acknowledge it and we do something about it no longer are we going to pretend it
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doesn't exist no longer are we going to be embarrassed to say vaginal dryness no
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longer are we going to pretend this doesn't happen are we going to hope that it's going to go away no more women
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should lose their job or be punished in the workplace for not being able to meet
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a target because she's menopausal women deserve respect and i see it as our job
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now as people with advice to make sure that we give women the support the resource and the respect
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they deserve so i urge everybody out there join the revolution it's a lovely place
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to be it's absolutely fantastic to know that you've got good people like davina mccall and penny lancaster and nadia ali
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and louise newson and the list goes on and on and on and on and these people and there's men there as well who are
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saying we want something done to make sure that we are providing women with what they
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need we are fabulous we are fabulous all our lives let's be fabulous after the
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menopause during the menopause and perimenopausal let's not be afraid to discuss it let's be open about it let's
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embrace it let's work with it and let's come out the other end as stronger women
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who are ready to take on the challenges that life throws as us if we don't do it for ourselves nobody else will do before
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us so come and join my revolution be part of that movement is going to change
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how the menopause is seen throughout not just the uk but throughout the world
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because they're watching us and we know that we can do this and together we can do anything so come on
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guys and girls join the revolution be a menopause warrior and join my gun thank you so much
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thank you so much um uh carolyn i'm slightly in awe at the minute and i'm definitely joining the revolution so i'm
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sure many of um the people on the call just looking at the chat while she was
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speaking it's just taking off you know lots of people acknowledging your own personal um experience and thank you
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very much for sharing that but also that kind of systemic issue with it within the kind of nhs and
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prescriptions so you can have a read through that there's lots going on on the chat function but thanks again
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and um yeah please everybody join this revolution and if not for us then certainly for for the next generation
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okay i'm going to quickly go on um to to our last speaker uh janet uh trousers
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i'm just going to pass um over to you now to to complete the session and then we'll get into q a thank you
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so janet you're on newt sorry classic sin
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um hello i'm janet trouse i'm head of hr at network rail um and i've been asked to
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talk about our journey uh what we did how we did it and maybe some of the results that we've seen
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um so but before i start on that i just wanted to echo my fellow speakers in
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terms of the experiences they've had um like both carolyn and rachel i probably
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didn't realize that i was perimenopausal and i've experienced all range of
33:36
symptoms and rachel is absolutely right you can suffer different symptoms at
33:41
different times and i think that's really key if there are any hr practitioners occupational health
33:47
practitioners in the room that's really key when you're actually managing this in the workplace
33:53
so um moving on i think probably the best place to start
33:59
is the why so if i wind back to 2017
34:04
there wasn't very much at all around people just weren't talking about menopause
34:10
and certainly uh there was only one other area that we found or one other organization that we found that was
34:15
doing anything on this and that was seven trent um you know every organization is different um if i
34:23
had stood up and spoken about my personal journey i don't think i would have had the traction
34:28
that i have now making it very business related is the way to go um and it just depends upon
34:36
your organization as to what matters so i work for network rail we are
34:42
responsible for for critical infrastructure so that's rails uh obviously uh bridges
34:50
roads tunnels uh and what we do really matters if it's
34:56
not safe so safety is one of our key themes and safety and well-being i think is really
35:02
important when we talk about menopause because if a woman is experiencing symptoms that are distracting her
35:09
or if a man is supporting um a woman going through those symptoms or if you're a lie manager of a colleague and
35:15
you don't quite know what's going on that can distract you away from a safe way of working
35:22
and and so that i think it's really important to stress that point whichever organization that you're in
35:28
performance goes hand in hand with selfie and well-being and most companies these days are measuring performance
35:35
whether it's a service sales uh for us we obviously uh uh
35:41
survive in public money um so we do need to be accountable for everything that we do
35:47
and then talent attraction and retention so in context for us and this is obviously going to vary for every other
35:54
organization at that point in time we were about 84 male
36:01
so what we were trying to do we have a gender matter strategy is attract
36:07
females into our industry and i think things that attract females into your
36:12
company are indicators that you are female friendly
36:17
it's very easy now to research a company on the internet look at their policies
36:22
look at the statements maybe their company reports and get a little bit more info about what it's
36:28
like to be on the inside glass door so our attraction and retention
36:34
strategies are important in as much as having good good uh menopause strategy is the same
36:40
as like a good maternity strategy so why i think anybody that's been in
36:47
sales as i started off uh my career uh is that we go gold the golden circle the
36:53
golden y simon cynic if you haven't looked at it it's a good way to start if you're
36:58
trying to sell something something to somebody who actually holds the purse strings or a senior team because senior
37:05
people in the organization really are important in terms of advocacy
37:11
so next slide please so the other uh thing that we did was we
37:17
made sure that we approached this as a serious project and so we did all of the things that you
37:24
would expect um for any project any other business project uh in in your organization
37:32
and so having a compelling vision robust plan for change and political
37:37
will all of those things for any of those project managers out there you will be familiar with that methodology
37:42
we did exactly the same for the menopause what we didn't do was make it too much of a personal journey because
37:49
we did need to catch the attention of a great many senior people in the organization and by default a great many
37:56
men we also decided to start delivering
38:01
things by drip feed i think it's tempting sometimes to just wait for the big bang
38:07
but if you start to drip feed and not be too curious about it you know
38:12
do that 80 20 it really does work so one of the first things that we did was we launched an article
38:18
on our intranet uh and a very brave lady um uh spoke about her journey and her
38:25
symptoms one of the things um that our communications people said oh
38:30
are you sure and we said yes yes we're sure and she had such positive response it
38:35
was really warming i think in terms of your team strengths this is a big project or it has lots of
38:43
different arms and legs you know very often is it health and safety do the health and safety team look after this
38:49
does it the hr team is the legal team doesn't really matter i think using the
38:54
combined skills around you is really great um and i think you know
39:00
i i was lucky that i had chief medical officer in the organization not every organization's going to have that but
39:07
equally i'm not comms person and having somebody to help us with that was really
39:14
really important and sponsor i can't emphasize too much about having somebody
39:19
who's on the leadership team to sponsor you and i think rachel spoke about you know that earlier
39:26
we also had a male sponsor uh at the beginning of the project and and that
39:31
was very very powerful and he was really curious about this subject um and
39:38
he he was an executive team lead team member and he i saw him in the office
39:45
challenge another colleague when she shrank away from this particular subject and that colleague
39:51
was quite senior herself so um it was very very powerful um and then in terms
39:57
of um delivery we we didn't have any budget so um i remember laminating stuff on my
40:04
kitchen table at the weekend uh they were flash cards uh for some
40:09
workshop sessions i was going to run um and i called it game of hormones um
40:16
i've never watched game of thrones but you know game of hormones and it was just just to kind of create a
40:22
little bit of fun but what it was was flash cards with um celebrity or media
40:28
people um who had spoken a little bit about their journeys
40:33
because i think the best proponents or some of the best proponents of people in the media
40:39
they've they've raised the game they've literally changed the landscape for this
40:45
particular subject so next slide
40:52
data um data all important um uh you don't
40:57
have to worry too much about what it says except for i i managed to change the females we went from 16
41:03
we're now almost 19 in the organization um and showing that actually there will
41:08
be quite a few of our females quite a large chunk of our females may be perimenopausal or menopausal and
41:15
actually most of our line managers by default are going to be male so that whole situation that's been spoken about
41:22
um about how men approach this i think is really critical but getting some sort
41:27
of data i think is really key making it you know why and the context of your
41:33
organization certainly i think a lot of females at this point of their career um and when
41:40
we're talking specifically about age-related menopause um you know they may wonder at that point in time i have
41:47
i experienced symptoms where i would never have usually experienced at all in my life i've never had anxiety but all
41:54
of a sudden bam it hits you it's when a mouse looks like a mammoth at night
42:00
but you know we do have um ladies or those colleagues born with a womb um
42:06
who you know experienced menopause a lot earlier um next slide please
42:13
so i spoke about zeitgeist so you know zeitgeist is
42:19
it you know 2018 i think was incredible in terms of what was going on there you
42:25
know the 100 years of the representation of the people act you know gender pay gap um
42:32
we've had to gender pay report uh equal pay claims were coming through the
42:37
millisecond force it statute for any of those people out there who are forcib members um you know we remember the the
42:45
prototype and then it was put up in parliament square that's a gratuitous picture of myself my colleague at the
42:51
time uh you know having a little photo next to it and i think you know the
42:58
whole kind of wave bow wave of lumpy feminism um coming down the line there
43:05
was also a white paper that was released um in 2017
43:11
and and i think it talked about the economic participation of women and then the little picture on the right hand
43:17
corner was um a poppy badge that my husband bought me which celebrated women
43:24
and in in the wars and uh this celebrated uh a nurse
43:29
uh emily gray who who lost her life and that was the first time um you know uh
43:36
the poppy fanta deadly sort of acknowledged the contribution of women
43:45
so quick wins we launched the event we made it part of our dni strategy which
43:51
is our everyone strategy lots of communications and launches of materials what you can see there is our everyone
43:59
guide to menopause and also um there's like a picture of the page on our safety
44:05
central site now what was really good about launching this on safety central is that besides the materials that are
44:12
on there and the film is the fact that you can access that page from any internet-enabled device
44:22
and you don't even have to work for network rail and we purposely did that because in our industry we work with a
44:29
lot of partners suppliers and contractors we wanted to get it out there we also wanted women to be able to
44:37
access this information in a safe space in a private space not everybody wants
44:42
to say it out loud not everybody wants to acknowledge this so we just need to be able to give ladies their privacy
44:51
the other great thing about this is that a lot of our male
44:56
colleagues have been able to take it home to their wives effectively um
45:02
you know they've come to some of our workshop sessions because we workshop this uh around around the estate in all
45:08
sorts of different groups well-being groups uh women's groups um
45:14
and just mixed groups across our organization um was oh do you know what
45:21
i think this is what my wife is going through and it's that kind of moment of realization and then they can
45:27
literally take home that information and run the film themselves
45:36
so this is the kind of feedback that we've had um you've changed my life was probably one
45:41
of the first pieces of feedback that i had a very very tearful lady came out of
45:49
workshop session and followed me down the corridor and stopped me and just was very very emotional about this
45:57
i took it home and shared the film with my wife i've already said booking an appointment with a gp is
46:04
really important because i think once people realize they've got all these symptoms just to be able to point them to their gp now look you know a lot of
46:12
gps aren't trained in this but that is the starting point um
46:17
and there was another lady who who emailed me not long after a session and
46:24
said you know i've actually been able to talk about this within my teams that they all know now why i come in a little
46:30
bit later we had 1200 hits with hits hits within the first few weeks and
46:38
i wrote to all of our executive leadership team and we had endorsement
46:44
from the chair and the ceo in network rail and that is absolutely critical the
46:50
tone of the organization carolyn spoke about timson the tone of the organization it is set from the top and
46:57
then we have colleagues sharing and networking so um there are sort of little colleague groups where they talk
47:03
to each other and they share things like i've seen somebody in the chat talk about louise newson you know all of
47:10
these um webinars i think you know meg matthews does one i mean there's so many of them now it's it's almost been an
47:18
explosion so
47:23
i would counsel not one size doesn't fit all because it is so
47:28
relevant to your organization um as much as you can do to engage with
47:33
other organizations as much as you can do to get advocacy
47:39
make the message memorable so last week i did a session to a group hr team
47:47
singing down my hairbrush down on on video to to a doris day song
47:53
just make it memorable everybody remembered it we have a safety moment and a passenger moment at every team
47:59
meeting um i think they think i'm a little bit bonkers but sometimes you have to be
48:04
but you know get the message across however you do it um and i think
48:10
embracing offers of help is a really key one because it's a really big subject uh
48:16
it's difficult just for one person to do it all so you know get get ambassadors of this
48:24
project as much as you can be inclusive with your language i think that hits us
48:30
quite early on in the project don't forget those colleagues who don't
48:35
identify as male or female but who are born with a wound
48:40
clarify the line manager's role that's really about saying no you don't actually have to ask a woman are you
48:45
going through the menopause then no that's probably not the way it's approaching
48:51
so you know managing difficult conversations training anything that you can do to coach i went up to leeds our
48:58
first line supplier of hr is based in leeds and i went up and gave them a training session as well they
49:05
didn't have any other companies that had a menopause policy at that time and
49:10
don't overlook male allies there are so powerful male allies and repeat and
49:16
refresh so it's a constantly moving dynamic uh environment at the moment i
49:23
think we uh spoke to caroline yesterday and said that you know i think with all
49:28
of the stuff in the media now we're probably not having to say so much about what menopause is although it's always
49:34
helpful to repeat and there's always really interesting statistics but i think it really does need to focus um
49:42
internally if you're in an organization online management capability
49:48
thank you and over back to daphne great thank you janet that that was packed full of great tips advice and and
49:56
lovely to hear your case study at network rail um lots of questions coming through we've got 10 minutes so i'm um
50:03
i'm going to try and get through them as quickly as possible and and there's some themes coming through you know people
50:09
interested in you know the networks are the support um alongside some very kind of um
50:15
specific questions about uh the menopause so um carol i'm going to start with you because the two very quick
50:21
questions about um the the revolution and so is is this is
50:27
the revolution something that that is just available in the uk we had i don't know what you saw in the chat we had somebody from sydney who's going to bed
50:33
now um but um i don't know whether that question was from her but is this when we talk about revolution are we talking
50:39
globally yeah i'd like the revolution to be global and um that's the aim is to to be global but i
50:46
think what the concept of the revolution is something that we've developed to accompany the private members built
50:53
until accompanied the work that we're doing on the appg but it's really picked up um momentum and i've actually done
50:58
some work with australia 60 minutes um canadia i'm i've got a meeting tomorrow
51:04
with a canadian legislator um i'm doing something with it with india i've had
51:09
emails from america and japan asking for some information so at this moment in
51:15
time it's a brand if you like that we've created to get people tweeting and to get the the the action
51:22
on social media and to get people to contact that mps to make sure they support the bill but there's no reason
51:28
why this could not be a global phenomenon because we've got the backing from so many people to take this forward
51:34
that yeah why not let's go global me on the global stage i'm picturing it now
51:39
great now that's that's good to hear i'm sure many on the call will be really pleased to hear that um so um i
51:45
think you've already addressed the kind of question around whether a hrt prescription would be
51:51
available in england and i guess that's part of you know what what you're trying to influence so i think we've answered that
51:57
question there were a few questions um around physical issues um
52:02
uh particularly you know related to to um menopause um
52:07
and this could go to anybody i'm not too sure i'm sure you all will all have an opinion but what is the difference between transition and the perimenopause
52:16
so i think somebody's interested in understanding that that the difference there i don't know who wants to take that
52:24
well it's a good question and because i got a bit tied up in knots i've got to be honest what's perimenopause when i
52:32
started on the project what's menopause or what's the trans what's the transition
52:37
and our guidance does go it go into it so do do have a look there but
52:42
as i understand it menopause transition is that it's the sort of overarching term that's used to describe the whole
52:50
process because it is typically a long process perimenopause that's where it all starts
52:55
their hormones change you start to have symptoms very possibly
53:00
and then it reaches when you haven't had a period for
53:06
12 months that is the menopause at that point that's the diagnosed
53:13
stage of the whole transition and then after that
53:19
you are post-menopausal now that's a that is how i understand it
53:25
but of course it can change because i know women who haven't had a period for
53:31
12 months so now they think they're post-menopausal and then they have one
53:37
so it's good to look at uh some of the there's some
53:42
really good advice out there to to help understand it because you know i
53:48
realized i was not very well informed at all yeah yeah and i think some of the questions definitely reflect that kind
53:55
of curiosity to understand it i think there was another reflection or observation from somebody around well
54:00
actually it's not necessarily 45 either you know we're talking quite early on i think i
54:05
think one of you made reference to that in your um in your presentations as well so there's
54:12
there's some questions you know lots of appetite to kind of network extend you know
54:17
education around this um and um janet you spoke about you know
54:22
your organization at network rail and what you've done and somebody's asked about you know what what can small to
54:28
medium-sized businesses do and i guess you've given a really good example with really limited budget around what you
54:33
can do but you know and there will be quite small businesses i guess on online today and who may maybe just not be able
54:42
to kind of um you know engage in in the way that you did do you have any tips but for those types of organizations
54:49
i'll come to you first janet so um i think it it sits alongside
54:55
anything else that you do in that dni space um you know this is about being inclusive
55:02
of everybody so you you know when we talk about um
55:09
menopause we very often point to reasonable adjustment um because
55:14
that's where a woman very often needs that consideration and that reasonable
55:20
adjustment may change um i mean it's doing it it's really
55:25
personal what what we need to remember is one size doesn't fit all you know we
55:30
could all of us be going through menopause but we have very very differing needs and i think that's
55:36
something to really keep in mind um making sure managers are able they are
55:42
told to have good conversations i think that's important little things
55:47
that we've done and i've got it in my hand is we've done like little tool kits this
55:52
is a little fan uh we've done little tool kits for those ladies who may not be in the office so
55:59
if you've got a small organization but you're i don't know a sales organization and you've got ladies who are out on the
56:06
road as i used to be uh dr you know my my car was my office then you might need
56:11
to think about the facilities and things that you provide then um but it is very individual and we spent to put it in
56:20
context um approximately two thousand pounds
56:25
um over you know to the launch which actually it became it began cost neutral
56:31
and that included getting a a short film as well which is relatively um
56:37
relatively small cost for a lot of organizations but you don't even have to spend any of that yeah that's great
56:43
great advice janet and i think um it may have been rachel you said earlier and it's the small changes you know so you
56:50
don't need to kind of look at this as is certainly at the beginning you know it's the small changes that can have the biggest impact
56:56
um so we're at 27 minutes past i'm going to try and squeeze um another
57:02
question um into um our call today so um
57:07
somebody sat apart from the revolution which obviously sounds amazing could the panel recommend um one thing that we
57:14
could do for the following position so they're very much looking at this from the different types of people within their business so for example
57:21
and i might give you one each that might be a nice way to finish the session but um as a male employee
57:28
um what do you think you know internally within an organization what's the one thing a male employee could do to kind
57:35
of start to to have the conversation or or educate themselves we've also got a
57:41
female employee and a hr professional so we we've had lots of um perspectives
57:46
from from janet but yeah and um carolyn do you want to give a view on
57:52
what a male employee could do internally well i mean i would say
57:57
regardless agenda it's about having those conversations it's about being open and receptive and listening and
58:04
asking a woman what she needs asking a woman what she wants not being embarrassed not laughing
58:11
not not diminishing the issue but being honest and open and having a policy that says you know
58:17
whatever it is that we can do to make sure that you feel that this is the place you want to be and that we can
58:23
keep you then we were prepared to do and that's not massively expensive it's not
58:28
onerous it's respectful and it's the right thing to do yeah no absolutely um
58:36
rachel janet do you want to add anything from you know and i i absolutely respect what carolyn said you know this is not
58:42
necessary about gender i guess the the person's probably thinking about you know there are dif there are different
58:48
angles or different ways of communicating this within an organization is there anything else you want to add on that question
58:54
yeah just quickly i mean really second everything that carolyn said um as i said at the cipd our most
59:02
passionate champion is a is male but i think
59:07
as well it's being mindful that not everybody will want to talk about
59:12
the menopause there can be cultural issues or just somebody might feel it is too private so it's not making
59:20
assumptions either about somebody supposedly of a certain age who will
59:25
want to talk about it i know some of the organizations we spoke to for the guidance from fact found that um but
59:33
even so if you are creating that culture and organization where you can say
59:38
menopause and hopefully men will feel comfortable saying menopause as well
59:44
then even if somebody who is experiencing menopause symptoms doesn't
59:49
want to talk about it you are still making things better for everybody including that person in
59:56
that organization yeah absolutely it's that conversation isn't it so we're at half past now and i know we're going to
1:00:02
close promptly so i just want to say a huge thank you to all of our speakers rachel carolyn janet janet it's been an
1:00:09
absolutely fantastic session you can see all of the conversation that's been going on in the
1:00:14
chat and so thank you all for joining and remember all of the guides and the
1:00:20
information that rachel's talked about is on the cipd website so there is more information you can find out about what
1:00:26
other organizations are doing um in this area as well so and thank you all for joining and have a lovely afternoon
1:00:33
thank you bye guys bye