Does your work offer support

[Ablenicecat]

Interested if organisation's l, companies offer any support for women's health like peri and menopause.

I got knocked back asking for one hour a month to allow us to get together and support each other - was told they did not want to promote. I would say 60% of our women workforce are struggling - these women make up 40% of the workforce and average tenure is 18 years.

Yes at my work we have an employee resource group for women/gender equality and there has been lots of discussion recently on the menopause, articles posted on the intranet and webinars etc

My workplace doesn't offer this, and if I made the request, it would definitely be shot down as they most certainly would not want to pay us to have an hour out.

However, at my last place (a lot bigger, and more corporate), there were things like this in place.

I imagine as time goes on (particularly for larger companies with responsibility targets), menopause will become a huge talking point.

My employer (global company with a large office in London) pays for an appt with a private GP specialising in menopause. I had one and it was very useful. At present that's all they provide but I suspect it will change as menopause continues to gather more publicity.

Our work has had a few talks on it to raise awareness and thinking about how to support people

We have a chat forum, advice pages for line managers, and also an informal network of women who meet periodically (not hugely frequently though). We also have hour long training webinars for line managers (again not super frequent). I haven’t needed the support group element personally but someone I line manage would have left if we weren’t so supportive as she had got to the point she didn’t believe in herself or abilities anymore. I line manage other people who have needed the support. Women are too precious to lose from the workplace !

The ‘henpicked’ website has some useful stats eg henpicked.net/menopause-hub/menopause-and-work/

We have this, as well as support groups for various other things. The meetings do tend to be over lunchtime though.