The government has rejected a proposal from the Woman and Equalities Committee to introduce ‘menopause leave’ pilots in England, arguing it could be ‘counterproductive’. It also dismissed a recommendation to make menopause a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. In response the Committee has accused the government of making ‘glacial progress’ on menopause support.
As the BBC reports, back in July 2022 the committee published a report which warned that the impact of menopause was causing the UK economy to ‘haemorrhage talent’. It said a lack of support was pushing women out of work and made 12 recommendations aimed at giving working women more rights. However, in its response to the report, published on Tuesday, the government rejected outright five of the committee's proposals, including a recommendation for the government to work with a large public sector employer to ‘develop and pilot a specific menopause leave policy’. The cross-party group of MPs argued this could risk women being "forced out of work by insensitive and rigid sickness policies".
The government said it was focused on encouraging employers to implement workplace menopause policies. They said "We are concerned that specific menopause leave may be counterproductive to achieving this goal." It also said it would not launch a consultation on amending the Equality Act to introduce a new protected characteristic of menopause "including a duty to provide reasonable adjustments for menopausal employees". The government’s position is that such a move could have "unintended consequences which may inadvertently create new forms of discrimination, for example, discrimination risks towards men suffering from long term medical conditions or eroding existing protections."
On the lack of menopause policies, back in September People Management reported on research showing that a majority of FTSE 100 companies, 60%, of them, have so far failed to publish menopause policies. So if the government is hoping to encourage employers to adopt menopause policies on a voluntary basis there is a long way to go. The concern is that, in the meantime, too many women will choose to leave the workplace due to a lack of support from their employer - forced out of work by insensitive and rigid sickness policies.
So, let’s consider that. Kate Dodd is a diversity and inclusion specialist at Pinsent Masons who has been working with a number of clients on this issue in recent weeks and she joined me by video-link from Manchester to discuss this:
Kate Dodd: “We have seen for decades, women leaving the workforce because of menopausal issues, because it's not understood because women themselves don't understand it. The symptoms of the menopause are not just physical symptoms. People think oh it's just a hot flush, we'll give somebody a desk fan, and that will deal with it. What we know about the menopause is it creates all sorts of kind of hormonal imbalances, and it can lead to crushing anxiety, huge loss of confidence, people experiencing physical symptoms that they've never experienced in their life before and they don't know what's wrong with them. People don't know what's wrong with themselves and they don't recognise that what they're going through emotionally and mentally is related to the menopause and we see women opting out of their careers at the very time they should be absolutely flying and, at the very time that the business needs them to be flying, businesses are losing women at times when they can least afford to do so.”
Joe Glavina: “There have been relatively few tribunal cases on this subject, Kate, but I do wonder if that’s going to change given the publicity this is getting. There’s now much more awareness around this issue now.”
Kate Dodd: “Oh yes, absolutely and recently I’ve written an article on this, actually, and we looked at the statistics around this and the numbers in tribunal are growing year on year. It’s still only quite small at the moment but the increase is more than 100% each year so it really is gaining momentum all the time and, the fact of the matter is, it is not just about employment here, it’s also about access to goods and services and I think there's going to be increasing litigation. So, for example lots of private health insurance do not cover menopause under the things that they will help women with because they say it's a natural part of ageing. Now, there is nothing equivalent that is not covered for men in relation to that and, you know, if you need a hip replacement, that type of thing, you would be covered. So, this is something that is unique to women, it only affects women, and in the same way as childbirth is covered in pregnancy this needs to have legislation around it to provide that additional protection.”
Joe Glavina: “In the evidence session that was held by the committee back in May a number of lawyers appeared as witnesses, and they all agreed that having a menopause policy was a good idea. Is that something your clients are asking for?”
Kate Dodd: “Yes, we are increasingly seeing them being asked for and we're always delighted when that is the case. Employers don’t need to wait for this to become legislation to take these steps. What a policy does is it means women find it easier to reach out for help, it makes women be able to say, look, actually, this is not embarrassing to talk about anymore, we never talk about these types of women's health issues in the workplace so why would we suddenly start talking about menopause? There’s a huge taboo that exists around this and therefore a policy can go so far towards that and it's really to see and making sure that, as well as the policy, you've got some guidance for managers to understand how to apply it is absolutely fantastic and if you can set up a menopause support group to bring people together to talk about this, men and women, then all the better because that really is best practice.”
There is also a health and safety angle to this, and you may be interested in that too. Zoe Betts has been talking to this programme about that – the role of HR and H&S specialists in supporting women experiencing menopause. That’s ‘Menopause support at work is both an HR and H&S concern’ and is available now for viewing from the Out-Law website.
LINKS
- Link to HRNews programme: ‘Menopause support at work is both an HR and H&S concern’
