Dial M for Menopause
From mad women to Menopause Warriors, the 42% of women who consider leaving their job because of the menopause are finally getting the recognition and support they deserve.
“The word menopause means mad, murderous, irrational and is seen as an illness,” straight talking PR pro Jane Austin (who runs the appropriately named PR agency, Persuasion Communications) told me when I first started looking into how menopause affects women at work.
Those mad women sure are making some noise. Dubbed by The Times as “Menopause Warriors”, they gathered outside UK parliament last week, celebrating the government’s decision to slash the cost of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) but campaigning for it to be free altogether.
Because HRT, along with a prompt diagnosis plus a workplace support programme go hand in hand to stem the tide of women who step back from work because of the effect of symptoms like fatigue, brain fog and hot flushes. 42% of women actually consider leaving their job because of it. Compare the average age of menopause onset - 51 - and the average age of a C-suite executive - 56 - and you can start to piece together why women still only hold 25% of C-suite positions.
Just ask Katie Taylor, who first started experiencing menopause symptoms at the age of 43 (just five years older than I am now), but wasn’t diagnosed for over four years, causing her to step back from work, when she predicts she could otherwise have had another 20 years in her career.
Once finally diagnosed and prescribed HRT, Katie’s new lease of life inspired her to set up The Latte Lounge, an online menopause support network that also works with companies to better equip them to retain such a crucial part of their workforce.
Katie’s story is both shocking and compelling, which is why I wanted to share it with you in this edition of ‘Your Best Work Life’ as one of a selection of Q&As I hope to bring you in coming issues to put a spotlight on the people making real change to women in the workplace.
Read on after Katie’s Q&A for more of my stories on menopause at work.
“We can’t afford to lose this talent from the workplace”: Q&A with Katie Taylor, founder and CEO, The Latte Lounge
What has your personal menopause journey been like?
Katie Taylor (KT): I’m 52 now, but it all began when I was 43. A busy mum with four kids, I was working at a mental health charity running their marketing and PR. I’d get overwhelming feelings of exhaustion, teariness, anxiety and brain fog. I'd be looking at budgets and just couldn't process what I was reading. I was overly emotional - the slightest thing made me want to cry. I also had heart palpitations. I thought I'd just crashed because I'd been working flat out. As a mental health charity, they were supportive and suggested I take time off. It was embarrassing because I thought, why can't I cope? I went back and forth to the doctor for about a year, and they just kept diagnosing depression. My GP suggested going down to part time, or even giving up work. I was made to feel like I was going mad.
I went part time and still felt no better. I gave up that job but got more and more down. It was suggested I see a neurologist because I was losing words and the doctor thought it could be early onset dementia. I also saw a cardiologist for the heart palpitations, but there was nothing wrong at all. This went on for four years, during which I became a shell of a woman.
I thought I’d try volunteering at a different charity as their Events Manager, so I could start using my brain again. But the symptoms kept getting worse. So I left. The doctor put me on antidepressants. Then I started having heavy bleeding which meant I couldn't really leave the house easily, so I took another work break. But being at home, sleeping on the couch most of the day just made me feel worthless, so I got another job as communications manager for yet another charity, but it was extremely hard trying to work and not be able to explain - or even understand myself - what was going on when I didn't have a diagnosis.
Luckily my dad is a retired breast cancer professor who felt it was hormone related. He sent me to see a gynae who he’d worked with. Within half an hour, she diagnosed me as having perimenopause and put me on hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I was angry and shocked that nobody had ever mentioned that. I'd never heard of the word perimenopause. I thought menopause was for women in their late 50s.
How did that influence your decision to start The Latte Lounge?
KT: I set up a Facebook group and had 2,000 members join in two days. There were thousands of people who'd gone through similar experiences of misdiagnosis and were struggling at work. Menopausal women are now the fastest growing demographic in the workplace and the symptoms of menopause, which can last anywhere from four to 10 years, often strike while a woman is in her 40s and 50s - in the prime of her career.
Women were telling me they’d given up their jobs, lost their marriages, some of them were even suicidal. That's when I decided to invest in building a website, put a medical advisory team together and linked up with another passionate menopause campaigner Diane Danzebrink to try and influence change. Diane set up the #MakeMenopauseMatter campaign which has three main aims: mandatory medical training for GPs on the menopause and perimenopause; menopause workplace policies in place to support affected women, and secondary schools to teach menopause as part of the curriculum (which has now been achieved in England).
What role is The Latte Lounge playing?
KT: Our online platform supports women with advice and connects them to medical professionals, but we’re doing a lot more work with organisations now too, because there are so many women who have so much to give, but are struggling with the menopause, and are leaving their jobs. Sadly, but not surprisingly, 42% of the women we spoke to in the survey we undertook in June with fertility and reproductive health benefits provider Fertifa, of 500 women about their experiences of perimenopause and menopause, said they had also considered leaving their jobs. We simply can’t afford to lose this talent from the workplace.
Menopause support in the workplace needs to be approached holistically - much like we’ve seen improvements with mental health and pregnancy support over the years.
Firstly, it’s about starting the conversation about menopause, raising awareness and building understanding. Menopause has felt like a taboo for many years so we need a culture shift. In our survey, 70% had not spoken to their employer about their symptoms. Many through fear it may make them look incapable of doing their job properly, or because of embarrassment. Each workplace needs to address that and create a safe space where employees feel they can raise the topic without shame or negative consequences to their careers.
Secondly, managers need to be empowered through education and training in how to handle conversations and support team members who are experiencing perimenopause/menopause symptoms. This is an incredibly sensitive area, especially if symptoms are affecting the performance of their employee.
Thirdly, it’s creating the framework for support within the organisation, and articulating the workplace support that will be available for employees - be that practical, medical or emotional - and then making that available in the form of guidance or a policy that is a reference point for both managers and employees.
If you're being helped at work and understood, you'll get on top of the problem a lot quicker. If you feel supported, you’re going to stay with that company. We know there’s a long way to go - in our survey 84% of women said there is no workplace support for menopause in place or they’re unsure it exists.
How do you feel menopause awareness and support can help more women progress into senior roles?
KT: I left my own career at the age of 43 because of debilitating symptoms that I felt I couldn’t discuss with my managers at the time and that affected my performance and ruined my confidence. Had I got the right diagnosis, treatment and support on day one, I would probably have had another 20 years of my career where I could have really gone for it.
There are lots of people all banging the same drum, and together, we will make change. If we can support employers to support women, then I'm happy, so no one has to go through what I went through.
Thankfully, progressive workplaces have begun to realise the potential costs to their business of not getting enough support in place for menopause. We’re already seeing increased demand at The Latte Lounge for our menopause awareness events, training and policy consultation work. I’m incredibly positive about the future for the next generation of women.
My menopause files:
Breaking the taboo around menopause and the workplace: A prolonged stigma surrounding menopause symptoms has made some women feel that the term is still associated with traits like irrationality and illness in the workplace. More is needed from employers, they said, to combat that discrimination.
Confessions of an agency director on menopause discrimination: A director at a digital marketing agency anonymously reveals her experiences of menopause symptoms at work.
Britain is pioneering the menopause-friendly workplace: The rarely discussed condition that forces women to scale back their careers is finally getting the equity treatment.
The brands finally addressing the menopause market: Move over Millennials - there’s a new audience rising up marketers’ radars: ‘prime time’ women experiencing the menopause.