The menopause-confident manager guide
Most managers want to handle this well, and few have been told what that looks like. This guide is the practical version: what to say, what to offer and what not to do.
Feeling supported by their manager nearly doubles the proportion of women who say menopause symptoms have no effect on them at work: 26%, against 14% of those who feel unsupported. The manager is not incidental to this. CIPD, Menopause in the workplace: employee experiences in 2023, UK working women aged 40 to 60 with symptoms, published October 2023
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The rest of the guide covers why so few people name the menopause to their manager, then all seven things a manager can do: how to open it, the adjustments that actually get asked for, what to do about a performance conversation and the four phrases to avoid. One-off, you won’t need to do this again on this device.
What a manager hears when symptoms keep someone off work
CIPD surveyed 2,185 UK working women aged 40 to 60 and published the findings in October 2023. The absence numbers are the ones worth starting with.
What people tell a manager when symptoms keep them off work
Asked about a time symptoms had kept them off work, 18% of women with symptoms said they told their manager nothing about it, 11% mentioned the symptoms but not the menopause and only 11% named both. So even when the menopause has already cost a day at work, the manager usually does not hear the word, which means a manager can be supervising this for years without one conversation about it.
And one of the reasons is about you
Of those who did not tell their manager the menopause was the reason, 46% preferred to keep that private, 41% were worried people would presume their performance would be affected, 34% felt their manager would not be supportive and 31% felt embarrassed. Only one of those, the 34%, is about the manager directly. The worry about performance and the embarrassment are both easier to get past with a manager who has already shown the subject can be raised.
73% of the women surveyed had experienced symptoms related to the menopause transition, and 67% of those said the symptoms had a mostly negative effect on them at work. If nobody on your team has ever mentioned it, that fits the absence numbers above: even when symptoms had kept someone off work, most did not name the menopause to their manager.
Seven things a manager can actually do
None of these requires a policy, a diagnosis or a medical conversation. Most of them take a few minutes. The first one is the one that unlocks the rest.
Say the word first, so nobody else has to go first
The single most useful thing a manager can do costs nothing and happens before anyone discloses anything. Mention the menopause in a normal, unremarkable way when nothing is at stake: in a team meeting about flexible working, or when the topic is on the news. You are not inviting disclosure. You are demonstrating that the word can be said out loud in front of you without the temperature changing, which is the exact prediction those 34% are making when they decide you would not be supportive.
- Male managers in particular tend to avoid this on the grounds that it is not their place. The avoidance is what gets read, and it is read as discomfort.
If someone does tell you, react well for two seconds
The first two seconds are remembered for years and everything else is recoverable. Thank them for telling you, do not look surprised or awkward and do not immediately start problem-solving. A good opening response is short: “Thank you for telling me. What would actually help?” That last question matters, because it hands control back to the person who has just taken a risk, and because they will usually have a far more specific and cheaper answer than anything you would have guessed.
- Do not ask for detail about symptoms. You do not need it, and asking turns a workplace conversation into a medical one.
Know which adjustments people actually ask for
They are smaller and more mundane than you might expect, and almost all of them are free. Control over local temperature, a desk fan or a desk moved away from a radiator or direct sun. A uniform in a different fabric. Flexibility on start times after a bad night, without it becoming a performance conversation. Access to a quiet space or permission to step out of a long meeting. More frequent breaks. A change to a presentation-heavy responsibility during a period when brain fog is at its worst. In the sessions we run, the request that comes up most often is simply flexibility.
- Agree adjustments as a trial with a review date. It lowers the stakes of asking and makes it easy to change something that is not working.
Separate the absence conversation from the capability one
53% of the women with symptoms had been unable to go into work at some point because of them. Set that against the absence numbers above, where only 11% had told their manager about both the symptoms and the menopause, and this is where real damage happens: repeated short absences trigger an attendance process, and the person is now defending a record that has a cause nobody has been told about. If someone has a pattern of short absences and you have no explanation, that is a reason to have a supportive conversation, not to open a formal process. Ask first. You may be about to discipline somebody for a symptom.
- Acas says: “When someone is off sick because of menopause, the employer should record these absences separately from other absences.” Check whether your absence policy does.
Do not let it quietly end someone’s career
Of those negatively affected at work, 79% reported feeling less able to concentrate and 68% an increased amount of stress. The risk is that a difficult period gets read as a permanent change in someone’s ability, and the consequences arrive silently: not chosen for the interesting project, not encouraged to apply for the promotion, quietly moved sideways. Nobody involved would describe any of that as discrimination, and the outcome is the loss of an experienced person at the peak of their career.
- If you have started thinking of someone as less capable than they were 18 months ago, ask yourself what you actually know, and when you last asked them.
Keep it confidential, and say so unprompted
Say explicitly who will and will not be told, before you are asked. If an adjustment means other people notice something has changed, agree in advance what the explanation is going to be, and let the person choose it. Trust is easily lost through managers who were entirely well intentioned and mentioned it to one other person for a good reason.
- “Nobody on the team will hear this from me. If anything needs to go to HR or onto a record, I will tell you what and why first. The one exception is if I am ever worried about your safety.”
Come back to it, once, a few weeks later
It is the step most easily skipped and it is the thing that separates a good conversation from an actual change. A short, low-key follow-up: is the thing we agreed working, does it need adjusting, is there anything else? Symptoms fluctuate over months and years, so an adjustment agreed in September may be wrong by January, and nobody wants to reopen a difficult conversation from scratch to say so. Booking the follow-up yourself removes that cost entirely.
- Put it in your own diary at the time. “Let me know if anything changes” puts the effort back on the person who found it hard to raise once already.
“Is it your hormones?” as an explanation for a disagreement. “My wife went through that, she was fine.” “Aren’t you a bit young for that?” And any version of a joke about hot flushes, including one you think is affectionate. Each of these is usually meant harmlessly, and each one ends disclosure for that person permanently.
Make your managers menopause-confident
Only 24% of the UK working women aged 40 to 60 CIPD surveyed say their organisation has a stated menopause policy or other support measures in place. A policy is worth having and it is not what people experience. Our Menopause at Work sessions work on the conversation itself, the adjustments and the confidence to raise it first. 30, 60 or 90 minutes, onsite or online, tailored before delivery.
Enquire about Menopause at WorkThis guide is general information for employers and people leaders. It is not medical, legal or HR advice. Where symptoms may amount to a disability, or an absence or capability process has started, involve HR. Anyone experiencing symptoms should speak to their GP. All figures are from CIPD’s Menopause in the workplace: employee experiences in 2023, a survey of 2,185 UK working women aged 40 to 60, published October 2023. Related reading: our post on psychological safety at work. Every session is tailored to your organisation before delivery.