As part of our Lunch & Learn series of webinars, Henpicked’s Sally Leech was joined by two inspiring winners from the Menopause Friendly Employer Awards: Lou Furby of Specsavers and Julie Cridland of Aster Group. They gave their top tips and advice on how to get started with menopause friendly initiatives, and how to keep the momentum going.
Henpicked: How did you both get started talking about menopause in your organisations?
Julie Cridland: We’re now in our seventh year of menopause support and programmes and when we first started, like many, it simply wasn’t something that was on our wellbeing agenda. But as we started training up Mental Health First Aiders I noticed that a few approached me about the psychological symptoms of menopause and their impact on mental health.
I didn’t really know anything about menopause back then so I sought some advice from a menopause coach. We had an initial session with about ten people to find out what the barriers were to them being their best selves at work and to find a starting point. It became clear that lots of people didn’t understand what menopause was or how it could impact at work.
The first thing to do was raise awareness, which we did through a structured training programme. We held one for leaders on how to have the right conversations, and one for colleagues to raise general awareness. There were also some women-only and men-only sessions, so people could be fully open about asking questions and talking about how they were feeling.
So this was the start: this is what menopause is and this is why it’s a workplace issue. From there, we were able to bring menopause into our wellbeing policy and start to roll things out.
Lou Furby: We approached things slightly differently. For us it was a personal thing: myself and my co chair Caroline both had very difficult experiences in work of menopause and didn’t want anyone else to go through the same. We set up a Colleague Network Group called Menotalk. The whole point of this was to put the feelers out and see if anyone else needed support, and it really took off.
We started with one simple key objective. To destigmatise the topic of menopause and to make sure everyone felt comfortable using the terminology associated with menopause. We collaborated with other networks to give us a ‘herd mentality’ approach. It began with us driving the initiative but it became clear that we needed business support to develop a robust strategy.
Henpicked: Is there anything you’d say to organisations just getting started?
Julie Cridland: Don’t try to do too much at once. Our business wasn’t ready for me to be in an open office talking about menopause straight away. You’ve got to engage people and bring them on the journey. You’ve probably immersed yourself in the topic but for many people even saying the word menopause at work can feel strange. Raising awareness can take some time but once you start with that other things will begin to fall into place.
Lou Furby: Absolutely. Doing one simple thing today versus nothing yesterday is 100% improvement. We took the decision to get things set up in our support office function and get that right before we rolled it out to our retail staff. One big challenge is to reach all parts of your organisation, as you probably have people in all kinds of different environments. Not everyone will be at a computer all the time so it’s about finding a wide range of platforms that everyone can access and engage with.
Menopause is a great topic to get into and you’ll want to do so much. But choose the stuff that impacts early which can build your narrative and help people feel comfortable. We’re talking a lot more now but menopause hasn’t always been an open topic and it can feel like a big shift for some people.
Henpicked: What have you done to keep the momentum going?
Julie Cridland: Consistency of messaging is key. It’s also really important to have a plan so you can keep things fresh. For me, it’s about looking at who else we could reach, what’s new, is there anything we’re missing. I always have a forward plan of what I can post on LinkedIn, for example, and I like to look at what other organisations are doing to get inspiration.
I’d still recommend keeping things measured though, rather than throwing everything at it all at once. Create your foundations and gradually build on those.
Lou Furby: It’s really helpful to talk to other businesses than your own to understand how they’ve managed their challenges. It’s also important to engage with industry experts as that gives you credibility when you’re landing your messaging.
Don’t feel despondent if it seems that this is the last thing people engage with. I know I’ve sometimes felt frustrated that no one seems to be hearing what I perceive to be an all-important message. But our business model means that store priorities won’t always have menopause high on the list. It’s getting the balance right between providing enough education and allowing people to choose to access this information. We aren’t allowed to mandate training so we do need to rely on colleagues coming to it themselves. But if we do enough to keep the conversation going and destigmatise the topic, we know they’ll search the information themselves.
Simple initiatives are also often the best. We often run these on World Menopause Day or International Women’s Day. Our Mention Menotalk campaign worked really well, where we asked everyone to tell just one person about our network group. This really helped to raise awareness of what we were doing.
Henpicked: Any further advice for other organisations?
Lou Furby: Don’t run before you can walk. For the first year we literally decided to open up the conversation and reduce the stigma. Sometimes this was me on a conference call saying I was having a hot flush. The first time I did that I got a few horrified expressions but also a few people that smiled and nodded as it resonated with them. This then gave them the confidence to open up and as this rolled out it naturally started to break the stigma.
I’d also say identify who your key influencers and stakeholders are in your business and engage with them regularly. It really helped us that some senior people were sharing their own experiences which then made it easier for others to do the same.
Julie Cridland: There’s a lot of information out there now so make sure you’re using reliable sources to inform your policies and initiatives. Also, give your colleagues plenty of ways to access your resources. Some people simply don’t want to talk about menopause and won’t join in groups or networks. But they might access information via your intranet, for example.
There’s a lot you can do which is really inexpensive, like sharing stories and signposting to your Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) or other platforms. But I’d really say don’t skimp on training and awareness, get the right people into your business to deliver that or to train you to deliver it to your colleagues.
Henpicked: Have you had any challenges engaging men or younger people with menopause?
Lou Furby: We’ve always had a positive experience with men. We now have a third co-chair who is male and leads on a lot of allyship activities. In fact, some of our best endorsements have come from men, who have found they can now have valuable conversations at home and can access information they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to. I think it helps that we approached this from a personal perspective rather than a business place.
I think talking widely about menopause opens up the menstrual health conversation as well, which will resonate more with younger people.
Julie Cridland: We found that most men were worried about saying the wrong thing when there were women present who might be struggling with symptoms. We ran some men-only sessions with a menopause coach, which got really good feedback for handling these conversations more comfortably with good outcomes, in and even outside of work.
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