Very difficult work situation - menopause related - advice/experiences needed

[Woofwoofwoofgoesthewolfhound]

I'm one of the senior managers in a small marketing & design agency.

One of the other senior managers recently hired a woman into his team. She's got a strong CV with an excellent record and the specific technical experience we were looking for. She's been in the role for a couple of months and the quality of her work has been exemplary.

But. She is suffering very badly with menopause-related symptoms, specifically rage, which appears uncontrollable. In the short time she has been with us she has already caused huge upset within the team by being rude, critical, argumentative, quick to anger, and basically very disruptive. Her presence has completely unbalanced what was previously a pretty harmonious team, and her manager (my colleague) is struggling to control the situation. A couple of the younger members of the team (one man, one woman) have said privately to him that they are finding the situation extremely upsetting and cannot continue working with her.

I know this could be interpreted as her teammates not liking a capable middle-aged woman who speaks her mind, but honestly that isn't what is going on here - her behaviour has been genuinely awful at times and completely unacceptable in the workplace.

Obviously this has been raised with her directly and she is aware of the problem and clearly very upset about it herself, but says that what she is experiencing feels genuinely uncontrollable. She's seeking help via her GP.

We (the management team) are now facing the difficult decision of what to do about the situation. On the one hand, she is doing great work and we have no reason not to believe her that her behaviour is entirely menopause-related - there are no red flags at all in her CV and she was with her previous employer for a long time and had a good reference. She is actively trying to get help. But on the other hand, we have a duty of care to the rest of the team who are on the receiving end of her rage.

It isn't possible to redesign her role to enable her to work independently of the rest of the team - collaboration is part and parcel of the role. So we have the option of either letting her go now (she is still in her probation period) or expecting the team to suck it up until she is able to find something that helps her.

I'm completely torn on this. As a fellow middle aged woman myself, it feels utterly awful that a woman should lose her livelihood because of the impact of something that is beyond her control. But we have a duty of care to our employees who are understandably feeling bruised and upset by her behaviour.

I'd really appreciate hearing from other people who have been in this situation, either as a manager or as employee (either as the one suffering, or as someone who has been impacted by someone who is).

I’m sorry op, but you cannot allow people to be bullied and abused as the person can’t help it. And it’s going to be hard pressed to have this classed as she is disabled.

you can either terminate or ask her to go on immediate unpaid sick leave and extend her probation

personally I’d terminate, immediately. You cannot have other staff leave so they don’t get abused and protect her.

100 percent.

If she is genuinely completely incapable of controlling her rage (I have worked with a LOT of menopausal women over a twenty five year career and have never encountered this so have no experience of it) you need to protect your other employees.

I also agree with this.

This ^ anything else would be considered discrimination and the company would be putting themselves at risk of a future tribunal. Depending on where she is with the GP (eg starting/just about to start HRT) then you could see if she would consider a few weeks off work while things hopefully settle. You can also formally extend her probation period if you both recognise it hasn't been the best start.

There are many consultants that operate in this arena, perhaps get on in and discuss with them?

Thank you, that is very helpful. We do try to be good employers!

Possibly daft question - we are a small company so we don't have in house HR or OH or anything like that. Is OH something we could get external help with?

Edited to tag @LoveRosesClimbing , I meant to quote you!

Op, you’d be very naive to assume this just suddenly started two months ago when she joined your company. As such she’s either always been an abusive angry bully. Or it is meno but she knew when she started,

personally I have never met a woman who can’t control themselves in the workplace. Have you? And I work for a multi national and have worked for several companies. I’m also menopausal.

its been two months, staff are already saying they can’t work like this. You know she’s abusing them. She says she’s out of control. Terminate. She can contact you all if she can get herself under control. I strongly suspect she never will. There will always be a reason.

Op, this is what probation is for. You don’t need external help. Why are you trying so hard to keep her, at the expense of your other staff. This makes you a terrible employer. The worst.

I'd be the first person to champion menopausal women in the workplace, and yes it can make you a bit outspoken and tetchy occasionally, but it's not acceptable for her to behave in a way that makes other people upset and uncomfortable working with her. Are you absolutely sure that her behaviour is menopause-reIated? Maybe this is just her personality! I would have a meeting with her and extend her probation. Tell her that you are very happy with her work but you cannot make her permanent unless she gets help and amends her behaviour, because of your duty of care to other employees. Give her time off in the day to go and see a GP and get some HRT. Give her sick leave if necessary. Giver her a chance to put it right, but don't confirm her in the role and allow the rages to continue.

When I was in my early twenties I had a colleague who was in her fifties. I think she was basically a nice person (with a few hang ups) but she used to rage and shout and swear at and about people. Occasionally she would get cross with me, which was pretty unpleasant, but even if she wasn't annoyed at me she would constantly complain about all of our colleagues and be really rude about them, overreact to minor mistakes etc. She also used to go bright red in the face, have a fan running constantly. I was a bit naive about menopause and just thought she was a cow. She really did poison our workplace and if she could have had some HRT/anger management etc it might well have made things more manageable, for her and for us.
I'm menopausal and finding working life challenging. Occasionally the filter deserts me and I can be a little outspoken. But there is no way I would rage or shout at colleagues - that's totally unacceptable and unprofessional.

"Isn’t the fair comparator to ensure that you avoid discrimination not a man, because they are irrelevant to menopause, but another woman of menopausal age? Are you treating her the same as you would treat another female colleague in same boat? As a peri/menopausal age woman yourself, this could be an easier way to think about it. So what would you feel is fair if you were in her shoes- which for all you know could happen?"

A comparator isn't necessary for direct discrimination. Just being able to demonstrate unfair treatment can be enough.

Tbf it's unlikely this would actually go further. My appetite for risk when I was in HR was pretty high, but even I would want to tread carefully with this one and handle it right and fairly.

I have of course considered that she is fundamentally a difficult person, in which case we would rather not keep her in the team, even if her symptoms improved with treatment.

I've never personally encountered anyone with uncontrollable menopause rage, and my initial reaction was to think its is just an excuse for bad behaviour. But as I said, some of the threads on here are genuinely upsetting and have changed my mind on this. One that I recall was from a woman who was actually feeling suicidal from self loathing because her menopause symptoms were causing her to react with fury towards her husband and even her own small children. By her own account she had never experienced any MH issues at all pre-menopause, and was utterly crippled by it.

Similarly, I read an article a couple of days ago about the devastating impact of PMDD. Absolutely no way are these women "choosing" this behaviour.

Yeah I don’t really get why you are so keen to keep her on. It will look terrible for the other staff if you are doing everything to help her while they are the ones suffering. I don’t doubt that she can’t control the hormonal rage as we’ve all been there but she has a choice when it happens to do what she is doing, or remove herself from the situation until she has calmed down. She can’t be given free rein to behave as she wishes because of menopause. She still has to treat colleagues with respect and not abuse them.

We have a smiliar situation and are keeping a brutal focus on good behaviour across everyone in the business. But it is really, really hard going and saps energy from what the company was set up for.
For HR and OH help I've used this company, plenty of alternatives about!
www.peninsulagrouplimited.com/?ved=2ahUKEwiPnM3V1KGIAxWGRkEAHSmwM7UQgU96BAgdEAg

I think you've misinterpreted me. I/we are not "trying hard to keep her".

I just want to make sure we have considered the situation from every angle before we fire a middle-aged woman with a great track record because of a medical situation that she is actively seeking help with.

No. It makes them a fair employer, and one that (hopefully) doesn't want to end up with a shitstorm to sort out. And one that wants to demonstrate to their other employees that if and when any of them find themselves with an issue affecting their work, they will also be treated fairly.

Or, yea, dismiss with full awareness that the employee has a condition that could amount to being a disability, without having this confirmed or not by a professional, without exploring it and trying to support in any way, then hope the little brown envelope all HR people dread doesn't arrive in a month 👍

Irrespective of what happens with this employee, sounds like having a menopause policy might help going forward

this is an example one

www.ageuk.org.uk/bp-assets/globalassets/cambridgeshire--peterborough-/original-blocks/about-us/policies--procedures-090920/staff-specific/menopause-policy.pdf

You could join the federation for small business they give brilliant advice and OH and HR advice as well as various other benefits for a small fee. We used Peninsula when I was in corporate but they were not well versed in the nuances if small business

So she is seeing her doctor, after which you have a meeting with her and discuss the plan moving forward. So basically give time for different remedies and things to kick in/be adjusted.

During which time put her on sick leave if dr thinks appropriate, or work from home. WFH ideally have her interact with you mainly and minimise work with other team members.

After that, phased return. Have her in. Have a plan with different areas and expectations covered.

Review after a couple of weeks. Get feedback from the rest of the team.

If no improvement, have a meeting and focus on the aspects of it being able inability to work with the team, i.e. nothing to do with her health. Have your evidence of dates and times where inappropriate things happened. And fire her.

You'll have thrown away so much money on her by that point, and you'll have tried your best so it's more than fair. Unfair dismissal very hard to prove, especially when you have evidence and interactions with other staff and plenty of documentation, and she's been there less than 2 years. We fired someone who basically just had the worst record of attendance after trying to help him for ages, he was always off with one thing or another but we focused on it being about ability to do the job, not attendance or health and no issues.

You need to act quickly or people you value in your team will start quitting, and often when one goes others go too.

In a small company people like her really take over the tone and it's stressful for everyone.

And absolutely make sure you keep an eye on any changes to laws coming up, because if they change it back to being a year to easily fire someone instead of two, you'll find it infinitely harder to get rid of her.

I'd think in order to be fair to everyone, you need to give her chance to explore her treatment options. Some time sick to do this would make sense. How long is her probation? Can it be extended while you wait to see if things improve?

Someone in the company - needs to be confidentially told what is going on medically. If I was struggling with rage that was potentially going to lose me my job I would be begging my GP for HRT. Or going private to speed up getting any tests etc and get the medication I needed.

Also the rages cannot be allowed to continue. Either she is told to disengage from a situation as soon as she feels the red mist rising or, if she cannot do that, then she needs to be off sick until she has got the required medication. Otherwise you will find her colleagues going off sick from stress and possibly claiming unfair dismissal.

The company can be both sympathetic and firm about required behavior in the workplace.

"And absolutely make sure you keep an eye on any changes to laws coming up, because if they change it back to being a year to easily fire someone instead of two, you'll find it infinitely harder to get rid of her."

In this case length of service doesn't matter, this employee is protected* from day 1

(*if it's a disability, which is unknown, hence it being crucial this is explored for dismissal to be 'safe')

There are some quite cavalier responses on here, from what I understand legally from experience of managing people at work. I’m not an HR professional though.

Menopause symptoms could arguably be a disability- it can be an impairment to normal functioning that could last more than 12 months. if your reasoning given to the employee for them not passing their probation is effectively their disability, then they can bring a legal challenge. Which could be disruptive and expensive.

As PP have said you could tell the employee that you will extend the probation period. Do this before it elapses. That extension helps you both acknowledge and draw a line under the previous unacceptable incidents. It assures the employee that you know that she will need some time to get herself sorted out via her GP. Make sure she has a copy of the company sickness policy so she knows what to expect.

Exactly. The reason why they behave this way is irrelevant. Your other employees are being abused horrendously and it needs to stop immediately.

If she was with her previous employer for a long time what reason did she give for wanting to leave in the interview? Did it ring true? Possibly she had the same issues and disciplinary action was being discussed / the situation had become untenable.