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[Momo]

Hello marvelous ladies
my employer is setting up a menopause forum and we have a meeting soon to kick the whole thing off. I wanted to come on here and ask what sort of things would make your life easier at work when dealing with the menopause?
 
I have looked at the Unison guidance and a member of the forum will have a HR representative , so i think we are covered from what they should do from a legislation point of view, what i wanted to find out is what more they could do?

For example, in some parts of the building, we have what is called a smart office environment, this means all the workers are expected to hot desk, so any 'personal items' such a desk fan is strongly discouraged. There is approx 1 fan for every six desks, now this doesn't seem too bad, until you are having a hot flush, but your desk  for that day doesn't have a fan. I want to ask that anyone who would benefit from a fan, has the right to have one on their desk and that workplace resources would provide one on request and that you could ask that no one moves it. Much as you would if you had a special chair if you had a back problem. Does that seem reasonable?

are there any other things that those of you who have been menopausal longer think would have made life better, such as the right to request flexible working? Quiet areas to work in when you get brain fog?

we have just had a campaign today, called Time to Talk which is about reducing the stigma of mental illness in the work place and i really want to start a conversation among staff and managers about something that will affect a lot of the workforce. Our staff are mostly women ( we are a County Council) and our average age is 47, so the stats would indicate we need to get people talking and acting and make sure no one has to suffer ( or sweat) in silence!

thanks for any opinions you feel able to share.

all the best Momo

[Salad]

What a great idea - flexible starting hours are a must for me.
On those days when you just feel rough and take a while to clear your head. I'm lucky that my job allows me to set my own diary so I can do this.

[Momo]

thanks Salad, being able to work at home on some days is very useful, we can use Skype for meetings, means if i have a rough day i can work at home, sadly there is a disparity at work where some managers are so controlling they won't let their staff work at home, even though their role means they could. But maybe with this forum we could chip away at that
cheers

[Mary G]

Momo, it would be worth trying to invite a medic along to talk about HRT - a menopause nurse perhaps?  It is worrying that so many women still don't consider HRT as the first line of treatment for the menopause and are unaware of the new NICE guidelines which clearly state that women should be offered HRT first and not be fobbed off with ADs although some may need to introduce ADs later if HRT alone doesn't cut it.  They also need to be aware that there is no longer any time or age limit.  Too many women still think HRT causes cancer and are scared of it and losing out on all the health benefits and of course being free of menopause symptoms.

If they can't take HRT for medical reasons or they don't want to for some other reason then fine.  But if they are struggling with debilitating symptoms they need to know about the benefits of HRT and consider using it.  You could even guide them to this website.

[CLKD]

Oh well done your employer!  Is the Company large enough to warrant the continuous appt. of an on-site Nurse? who could gain an interest in female health over-all ?

Any Company over 250 employees has to provide a rest room.  I think that men should be made aware too  .  After all, they are usually involved with pregnancy .........

[Optimist]

Hey this is what I am planning on doing also... my idea was a menopause support group with monthly presentations/topics and to ask a specialist to come in and talk about menopause and HRT.
Like you we are a predominantly female workforce and I have looked into things such as fans etc luckily we can mobile work so this could help with start times. We have a policy for mobile working that clearly lays down guidance and maybe if you haven't already you could write a policy/SOP to ensure that all employees are allowed to use this valuable commodity regardless of who their manager is.
Fortunately as we are a medical profession we have a lot of medical knowledge so have the benefit of ensuring any health needs are looked after. We also have occupational health so any reasonable adjustments can be put into place and this is such as what you mentioned re special chairs & other equipment which would cover things like fans.
I love doing PowerPoint presentations and I'm thinking of doing some for monthly “hot topics” to raise awareness of issues surrounding menopause but mostly to allow our ladies time to express how they are feeling and to let them know we are trying to help them. I'm fortunate that I'm in a position to be able to kickstart this (& have been going through this with difficulties so have done a lot of research) and it's great that a local authority is also going to start raising awareness, (our police force recently have introduced support for the women workforce).
It's time we got this “elephant in the room” out and aired!!
Good luck with your venture, would be good to hear how you're getting on, not sure if you can message me on here if your new as I could maybe discuss our policy etc with you.
Optimist x

[CLKD]

Optimist - maybe share resources  if you love power point .........

[Optimist]

Will happily do that CKLD when I'm up and running 🤗 x

[Momo]

Hi Ladies
thanks for the brilliant ideas CLKD and Optimist. We don't have a full time nurse i don't think, but we have working well forum and  mental wellbeing ambassadors - i am in both, so we can certainly use them to engage with to tap into expertise across the county, we might also be able to make use of public health team too. We have rest area in County Hall , but not so sure about the Hub sites, but we tend to share space with District Councils, so we can probably make user of their facilities too.

I am lucky enough to work with people who use things like Microsoft Team and groups ( the council is in bed with Microsoft for a lot of its Tech) and that is a great way to get people to have conversation, without the need to meet face to face. We also do what we call Lunch and Learn sessions,  they last about 30 mins, where people can Skype in from their desks and watch a presentation from whomever is the 'expert', whilst woolfing down their lunch We record those too, so people can play them back at a time to suit them.

 I love a presentation too! Have you used SWAY, it is from Microsoft? And  is a great way to do simple presentations, or put it into a newsletter style format and you can embed videos and pictures, would be happy to share our experiences. We are meeting in the middle of the month, so will try and come back and share what we agreed. We have the HR director leading on this and he is very keen to change the culture, so fingers cross we can make a difference.

thanks for the support ladies

all the best
M

[Optimist]

Love the idea of the “lunch and learn” sessions -unfortunately were definitely not as tech savvy in my organisation!
Gives an opportunity for ladies to link in though without having to travel if they're busy-great idea.
Good luck with your venture I think you're steps ahead of me, as I've so much work on at present that I don't know if I'm cokinv or going !! Not great for menobrain/body 😁 at present xx