As we navigate the professional landscape, the unspoken trials of menopause can steer the careers of countless women into uncharted waters. Melanie White, co-CEO and co-founder of Sage Women's Health, illuminates the intricate ways perimenopause and menopause ripple through the workplace. Through our discussion, we unravel how these life stages not only challenge the individual but also the collective fabric of corporate culture, potentially leading to a loss of expertise as some women feel compelled to take early retirement.
Melanie's insights underscored a 'perfect storm' brewing in corporate corridors—where exhaustion, shifting family dynamics, and workplace demands converge, testing the resolve of many women in midlife. We shared personal experiences and dissected how employers and male colleagues can contribute to an environment that supports and understands the nuances of this transition. The conversation also highlighted innovative strategies, like mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, that have the potential to alleviate some of the most challenging symptoms, advocating for a corporate culture that prioritizes health as much as performance.
In our final reflections, we delved into the transformative journey that life's trials can inspire, discussing the redefinition of purpose and the paths that unfold as a consequence. With Melanie, we traversed topics from maintaining optimism to embracing change, drawing from our varied experiences to underline the shared threads of human resilience. Our dialogue, bridging continents and cultures, culminated in a celebration of the strength found in life's transitions and the commonality of our experiences. Tune in for a heartfelt exchange that not only informs but also emboldens appreciation for the intricacies of life's voyage.
You can find out more about Melanie and her work at https://www.sagewomenshealth.com/
Find our more about Wellbeing at Work's Global Summits, our Global Hub Community of C-Suite executives and our Bespoke division at wellbeingatwork.world
As we navigate the professional landscape, the unspoken trials of menopause can steer the careers of countless women into uncharted waters. Melanie White, co-CEO and co-founder of Sage Women's Health, illuminates the intricate ways perimenopause and menopause ripple through the workplace. Through our discussion, we unravel how these life stages not only challenge the individual but also the collective fabric of corporate culture, potentially leading to a loss of expertise as some women feel compelled to take early retirement.
Melanie's insights underscored a 'perfect storm' brewing in corporate corridors—where exhaustion, shifting family dynamics, and workplace demands converge, testing the resolve of many women in midlife. We shared personal experiences and dissected how employers and male colleagues can contribute to an environment that supports and understands the nuances of this transition. The conversation also highlighted innovative strategies, like mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, that have the potential to alleviate some of the most challenging symptoms, advocating for a corporate culture that prioritizes health as much as performance.
In our final reflections, we delved into the transformative journey that life's trials can inspire, discussing the redefinition of purpose and the paths that unfold as a consequence. With Melanie, we traversed topics from maintaining optimism to embracing change, drawing from our varied experiences to underline the shared threads of human resilience. Our dialogue, bridging continents and cultures, culminated in a celebration of the strength found in life's transitions and the commonality of our experiences. Tune in for a heartfelt exchange that not only informs but also emboldens appreciation for the intricacies of life's voyage.
You can find out more about Melanie and her work at https://www.sagewomenshealth.com/
Find our more about Wellbeing at Work's Global Summits, our Global Hub Community of C-Suite executives and our Bespoke division at wellbeingatwork.world
Hello and welcome to this latest episode of Conversations on Well-Being at Work. The podcast by Well-Being at Work World will be featured discussions with innovative HR and Well-Being leaders from around the globe. I'm John Brewer. I'm part of a global team and my focus is largely on the content side in North America and also a little bit in Latin as well now, which is an interesting area where we're expanding. You can find out more about our global events. We run events in eight regions across the world at our website at wwwwellbeingatworkworld. We also have a hub there that you can join and we've got lots of information and some webcasts and the like that you can consume through there.
Speaker 1:This podcast continues the tradition started in 2014 of delivering trusted and independent content from around the globe. It's great to have my guests with me here today. We've got Melanie White, who's the co-CEO and co-founder Sage Women's Health. She was a speaker at our summit in Australia recently, where she spoke about how women at work can manage menopause, which is going to be our topic for discussion today. Welcome to the podcast, melanie. Great to see you.
Speaker 2:You too, John. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's sleep right in. Perhaps we could start if you could just share a little bit about what exactly perimenopause and menopause are.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We're just simply talking about the decline in ovary function and the changing of hormones and the reduction of estrogen. Perimenopause is the period of time leading up into menopause. Menopause is actually just one day. It's 12 months after your last period has happened. 365 days without a period. That's the day of menopause. After that you're in postmenopause. It's a very quick definition of perimenopause and then menopause leading into post.
Speaker 1:We tend to associate both of those with age. I know in our discussion we're going to be talking about as women age in the workforce and experience these conditions and the like, but it can impact quite young women, can't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Some women, and more commonly now, are going into entering perimenopause and menopause in their mid to late 30s. That's known as early menopause. Then we have medically induced menopause. If a woman has cancer or has a hysterectomy for some other reason and ovaries are removed, that can see the onset of menopause as well.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we're looking at quite a large population of women in the workforce who are impacted by this. What impact does this actually have on the business?
Speaker 2:It's a big impact actually when you consider that the women who are going through perimenopause and menopause now are Generation X broadly and the tail end of Generation Y. We're looking at a big chunk of women aged in their late 30s into them in 50s at the moment when we're considering the impact on the business. There are lots of ways and I could go into great detail but to keep it really succinct for now, we can unpack whatever you like. We're looking at female dominated workplaces where you have a large swathe of women experiencing the symptoms of menopause and only 20% of women have no symptoms of menopause. So 80% of women do have at least one symptom. That's a lot of women struggling with things behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:If you're in a customer facing role, if you're dealing with corporate clients, if you're a team leader, your ability to be present and active in those roles might be made more difficult by your symptoms. So the impact to business can be women resigning early. They're saying on average it's seven years early that women are retiring and going part time or needing adjustments, not being able to cope with workloads, and there's all of those flow and impacts. So people leave leaders, not companies, for example. So if a woman does resign due to menopause, potentially the clients walk out the door looking for somebody else or staff may leave in response to that resignation. So it is a really big financial impact loss of IP, wisdom and talent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that represents a significant loss to businesses. Like you say, in certain businesses that can be particularly large where you've got large female populations.
Speaker 2:I can think of one example. We spoke to somebody who has a business with remote office locations in the aged care sector and all of those individual locations are managed by women going through menopause. What happens in that case? Where a woman resigns, it's very hard to fulfill that new role and the people in those facilities don't like change. So it's a huge upheaval for the clients in that business.
Speaker 1:Now I saw a number of really interesting blogs about various aspects of menopause on your website and we'll put the URL for that in our comments on this episode when we publish it. But you have this idea of this gender code People, sort of biases around gender impact, their attitudes towards menopause and also some of the impacts on women that are specific to gender, around the pay gap, for instance, and that notion, as you mentioned there, the fact that women are quitting at a point where really in many ways they're peak in terms of relationships and knowledge and experience.
Speaker 2:Yes, one of our team members, Danielle Dobson, wrote a book called the Gender Code a few years ago and it's really a very interesting book because it does talk about how we are conditioned to have these biases from a very young age and that has a huge impact on us as women and on businesses as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what are the symptoms that have most impact in terms of the workplace?
Speaker 2:Well, john, I don't know what you know about menopause, but I would ask you if you were to guess what the number one symptom would be. What would you say it is?
Speaker 1:If I had to guess, I would say hot flashes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, am.
Speaker 1:I near or not.
Speaker 2:That's what gets talked about, but actually the most common symptom is exhaustion. So what we hear is it's hot flashes, and yes, they do occur, but simply being extremely tired, poor sleep and exhaustion are what most women state to us, are the number one can say.
Speaker 1:So I'm a great example of someone who has basically has a poor understanding of the condition, right that that's based on just things I've picked up in time as I've moved through the world, paying very little attention to what's going on.
Speaker 2:And so do we all. I think about my mother, who had no idea what periods were until she got her first one and thought she was dying. So you think about puberty. If you don't have that knowledge and education of what's going to happen to you, it's pretty confronting. Similarly, we have a whole generation of women who don't really know about menopause because nobody ever talked about it. Our mothers didn't talk about it. So we're confronted with a whole range of symptoms, seemingly disparate and separate, but all together often fall under the menopause umbrella and are very similar to symptoms of burnout too, which can happen at the same time. So we're looking at brain fog, been up, been unable to remember names of people that you know well, we could be sitting in a meeting and I think okay, john, just because I've written it down, it can be that bad Night sweats, sore joints, bloating, weight gain, dead aches, and the list goes on. I think there are something like 32 symptoms that a woman can face.
Speaker 1:And is there a tendency I hate to even ask this question is there a tendency for men to be a little dismissive of some of those? So we all feel tired? I sometimes say I know I'm growing old because the pain doesn't go away, it just moves around. There's always some part of you that's aching. But clearly we're talking about something that's more, has a bigger impact and is more serious than just the sort of general feeling of getting a little older, maybe a little slower, a little more tired. Here and there these symptoms are serious.
Speaker 2:They are serious, and I suspect that it would. I haven't heard of men being dismissive. Actually, most of the men I know are very interested in wanting to do something, but they just don't know, once again, because nobody talks about it. I think that the key issue is, firstly, somebody really has an understanding of all of the things that can happen and how they fit together. They're not these isolated symptoms, they're a range of things. But also the fact that it's not being talked about probably does make it easy to be dismissed by some people, and in some cases we've spoken to women who have been ridiculed, called the grumpy old menopause woman, or having someone say oh, we used to take people like that out in the back. Pettie can shoot them. So the commentary doesn't allow for the discussion, which doesn't allow for the understanding.
Speaker 1:I just mentioned that briefly. It's one of the things I think that I was looking through. Some of you have struck me particularly relevant. You can tell me if I'm wrong, but it was that notion the gender pay cap, the way that expands with age. So therefore a lot of women who are leaving the workforce because of this are leaving earlier than they should for their own financial wellbeing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's a really big issue and there's been some statistics done in Australia, only very preliminary. Of course, we are having a Senate inquiry here which will conclude, I think, at the end of 2024, which will give us more information about the impact of menopause on businesses. But we are seeing all sorts of stats coming in. For example, lost superannuation is in the order of $20 billion a year. So women exiting the workforce are accessing wages and super, and then the cost of re-employing women.
Speaker 2:But we're also seeing there's this term silver splitters that Kath Reak from Scotland mentions where women are divorcing in midlife and the woman would take the house, perhaps for raising a family, and the husband would take the assets which are generating income. So without a job or in a low paid role, it's very difficult to maintain a mortgage or to keep the house running, as opposed to somebody who has income generating assets. And that's not my area of expertise, but it's a very interesting factor in it. And really the fact is that menopause is a biopsychosocial issue. It has impact in all areas of life businesses, the economy, social areas, familial structures and health.
Speaker 1:Well said. Also that age point you talked about, even at the early you mentioned, in the late 30s, early 40s, but the sort of peak time being around 50, that's also a time when a lot of well Gen Xers now they become caregivers for their parents. Yeah, and I'm going to go on a wild guess here and say that most of the burden of that falls on women.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, I don't have any data on that, but I suspect it does.
Speaker 1:I'll go on a guess that it does I think it does and it totally.
Speaker 2:Looking at my friends and their families, and they're tending to be the ones that are looking after the parents, but we're known as the sandwich generation. We were once the latchkey generation and now we're the sandwich generation, so we're caring for aging parents and nurturing kids out of school and into their adult lives. It's a lot to take on.
Speaker 1:So you've got this combination of reduced energy, as well as a cluster of other symptoms financial pressures, family pressures on women as well, at a point in time when they're probably they're taking on even more responsibility at work. So this is a bit of a I hate the term perfect storm, actually, but let's use this. This is a bit of a perfect storm, isn't it? For women.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it absolutely is. And imagine that you're not feeling well and you got aches and pains and you're not sleeping well. Suddenly, you just have far less tolerance and capacity for all sorts of things. So anything that's uncomfortable, feels toxic, that you don't enjoy, you're going to start shedding, and I'm speaking of this through experience as well. You think, okay, I've got a few shekels of energy today. What do I want to spend that on? What's the best focus for me with the limited resources that I have?
Speaker 1:So we're spoken a bit here about what menopause looks like and the experience and the context in which it exists in terms of financial and work, et cetera. So we should probably talk a little bit about the response to that. So clearly, we've identified this as being a significant risk and cost for employers. So let's start there and say what are the steps that employers can take to support women undergoing this.
Speaker 2:Before we talk about that. Perhaps one other thing that leads into that is the fact that it is actually a really amazing opportunity for women in midlife to reinvent themselves, because we start questioning our purpose. We've spent a lot of time working, looking after other people and we're thinking what about me? What do I need and want? And I think it's a really great opportunity for women and for employers to harness that energy and say what would you like to do next? So I think on one side, there is the chance to help women to find more suitable roles or more suitable ways of working that play to their strengths and to help them continue on a career path that will keep them financially secure and that will create continuity of IP, wisdom and relationships in the business. That's one thing that not many people are really talking about, but I think is an amazing thing to look at. And there are some other really simple things that businesses can do to help keep women engaged and to keep them well and at work. Firstly, by providing information, so that could be live webinars or recorded webinars or, even better, interactive events where women start to learn about what's going on for them and what it means for them to get that conversation going and those events can be helpful for the whole team to come in and gain that understanding of what it might be like or why someone behaves a certain way. That kind of levels the playing field to have that information available. It creates understanding.
Speaker 2:I think another thing that's really powerful and some early case studies seem to indicate is a very good way to go, is to create conversation groups. That could be within or outside the workplace. But women want to hear from other women. They want to know am I normal? Have you experienced this? We tend to reach out to people like us to get answers. So creating those little conversation hubs inside a workplace or outside is another really great thing to do. And then the other thing that a workplace can do is to create what I might call reasonable adjustments Just more flexible working hours or more flexible job roles or making the meetings a bit shorter or allowing for breaks in meetings those sorts of things Really simple things that can be really effective. It doesn't mean that you have to go out and have a policy or create menopause, leave or anything, and in fact that might be even more embarrassing than having nothing at all, because suddenly you have to tick a box that says, yeah, we're taking menopause leave.
Speaker 1:Presumably this is an error. It does carry a little bit of stigma. It's not unlike, say, depression or anxiety and a number of mental health conditions. Particularly Presumably, it helps to have open conversations with everyone around these, talking to having men like me better understand it would also help, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, definitely. We have seen this too, that when men have had information made available to them, it just helps to create better relationships at work and at home, because they know what's going on, they know when to stay out of the room and what sorts of support they can offer. Because when you don't know what's going on and you don't know how to help someone, it's not a nice feeling. But we can turn that around with information and support for men as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we hate things. We can't fix us men. We're here to fix things right, and that can be a challenge.
Speaker 2:If what's needed is maybe some better, softer skills versus just some sort of mechanics of some kind, right, yeah, and there are all sorts of great ways to start the conversation around menopause, and when those interactive sessions happen, it's really powerful, just that. It's like everybody suddenly has a common language and that's the start of acceptance and understanding and then, as I said, better relationships and a better culture of work. I think too, not just for menopause but for any other health-related issue, to start the conversation is really important.
Speaker 1:I know there were a couple of things, I think what you mentioned already. There were a couple of sort of things that struck me from looking through the materials that you've got on your site Around the link between menopause and certain sort of some of the sort of things that get discussed a lot. The first one was burnouts. Obviously there's a and one of the things that sort of concerns me, as concerns me it's trying to be. There's a tendency often with these things to silo them off, so perhaps we could I don't know if you really talked about the sort of lack of energy but around burnout, how does that, how does menopause impact that Become a sort of contributor to burnout?
Speaker 2:One of the things that's interesting out of a recent study of the NHS in Scotland with, I think, they surveyed 6,000 women, was that no one wants to admit that they are struggling in menopause and if they're not able to do their job during the day, they'll work after hours to get their work done rather than complain. So that is an obvious way that menopause and the symptoms can lead to burnout by wanting to maintain their job and their productivity. But I suppose the other thing is that it's a huge, sudden, irreversible change in your body and your mind and your emotions. It's a lot to deal with. It's very confronting. So the emotional toll is huge too.
Speaker 2:And one thing that's interesting to me I've been coaching women in menopause for several years. I say what are you doing for fun? Oh, I'm not doing anything for fun. And the reason I mention that is because the ability to cope with stress is critical in menopause. Stress is a huge driver of symptoms and the worsening of inflammation, poor immunity and things in our body. And if you're not having any fun in life, if you don't have hobbies, if you don't have time out, if you don't have a way to decompress, if you don't have a way to fill your cup and do something for yourself. It means that when a stressful situation comes along, you're under-resourced.
Speaker 2:That's pretty much what stress is not having resources to deal with a stressful situation. I think it's really important that we also look at the opportunities for downtime, for play, for enjoyable things, for new hobbies and, going back to what I said earlier, the chance to reinvent yourself. Maybe you always wanted to sing, or maybe you always wanted to play the piano, or maybe you always wanted to play tennis, but you never got around to it. It's a great time to start because it's really going to help you with these huge transformational changes that are going on.
Speaker 1:So does the conversation I've had quite a few times recently about a well-being topic is around the importance of rest. You mentioned working. You know can't get the work done at work because of various reasons, so you end up working in the evening when you maybe feel a little better. But there's quite a stigma around people resting. We shouldn't rest, we should be working hard all the time. Rest presumably is, I would think is an essential part of coping with something like this.
Speaker 2:Definitely, I think, of a sports context. Your performance is related to how hard and how well you train, but it's the rest days that allow you to capitalise on those gains that you made. You need to rest and repair so that you can come back again. If you're constantly depleting, then it's a bit like a soap on a rope You'll just end up with a rope at the end. Yes, so I think that's really important. And actually, while we're talking about these things, john, I think it is important to say that for some women, there are quite severe medical and psychological consequences of menopause, and it's always important to go to your doctor or get a referral for a psychologist. I should mention that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in fact, we just had a couple of episodes again on the podcast specifically had quite a large component about the way in which we, at work, we adopt sports metaphors that tend not to be the most positive ones. They are about the kind of just gritting your teeth and running through it and pushing hard and always giving 110% versus what actually what top performing athletes do, which is they take a rest. It's that cadence around work and rest that's important and that obviously applies as much here as anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's part of it. Yes, unsurprisingly.
Speaker 2:That's part of the flexible work arrangements. If you can allow someone to come in and take a couple of days a week off or work different shifts or change the job role a little bit, it's a little bit like accommodating an injured athlete or allowing them to have more rest. There's lots of things that people take time off for and get accommodations for, and I think this can be one of them, and it doesn't have to be a big song and dance. Actually, it can just be part of an organization's culture that allows people to have the rest they need, to feel happy to want to come to work, to want to do all the things that they've got to do in life and to get through it easier.
Speaker 1:It's a great example of one of those things which you make an adjustment for. In actual fact, it's really something that's good for everyone in any situation that we're all going to face a similar I mean not similar experiences, right, they're different, but they also may be things that we need similar kind of accommodations for Mindfulness. I saw something on your site about mindfulness having a good being a good, a good tool to have in your kit if you're facing menopause, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, one of our team members runs a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy program actually evidence-based and there, in terms of menopause particularly, there's plenty of papers that show that it can reduce the hot flashes, it can reduce anxiety, it can improve sleep, and sleep is one of the key issues upstream of all of the symptoms of menopause sleep and stress. So mindfulness helps you to just stop. Well, to worry less. I'm sure it's hard to just stop, but to worry less about the future or have regrets or guilt about the past. But to be calm and to calm the nervous system is so important to have tools that can help you to do that and that's a really simple thing that anybody can access at any time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I saw that anxiety is one of the areas where women in menopause are particularly susceptible to anxiety.
Speaker 2:Yes, and in fact recently there was a study which is quite interesting. They said that there seems to be I can't remember the term, it was something like a hormone or window of up to two years where the changes in all the different hormones in the body can predispose some women to have anxiety or depression for that period. So that's really a danger time and they tend to withdraw, not socialize, stay home, and that's one of those cases where obviously you need some help and some tools to manage that.
Speaker 2:So can it be linked, then, to feelings of loneliness and isolation and not belonging, and Absolutely All of those things, yeah, and just feeling tired, exhausted, not able to cope with people or conversations or pressure, and so pulling back from. I know people that have said I don't want to go out to a concert or I don't want to commit to going to parties anymore because on the day I just might not be able to cope with it. Then you withdraw socially, but social connection is really important. So that's this tricky situation to be in.
Speaker 1:Which is another thing which has helped by having those sort of conversation groups that you mentioned earlier on and just a great openness around the condition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what it's like when you've got those like-minded people with you, you feel safe and you feel like you can open up because they're going to get you, because they're going through it as well, can really ease the burden.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wish I had I have. It is when you talked when we first died the conversation about the sort of the onset of menopause and perimenopause. There's an end to it, I assume. I hope I don't know what's the sort of. Is there a rule of thumb around the duration?
Speaker 2:Well, pairing man and paul is up to that final period and then they're the year after. That can be anything up to around 10 years and then for the rest of a woman's life, she's post-menopausal. So some of those symptoms can continue into that stage as well, depending on the person. What's going on for them, how their body systems are working, what sorts of stresses they're under could be. Some women have zero symptoms and part of that is the way that they're living and their lifestyle habits, which just goes to show how much you can do with the right eating, exercise and managing stress and sleep and things right up to perhaps 20 years at the worst case scenario. But on average I'd say we're looking at around five to 10 years of tough symptoms.
Speaker 1:So we're running up to the sort of the arbitrary time limit I set on these conversations. I wonder are there any sort of thoughts you'd like to leave us with that? Obviously, we've only scratched the surface here, but if there's any specific messages you'd like to include, then now is the chance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, john. I think a couple of things to say are let's make it easy to have conversations about men of horse and introduce information to women that we don't have, so that we all know what's going on and how to manage that. And let's talk about the things that we can do, the lifestyle changes that we can make and also the opportunity to redefine who we are and move forward and still be productive, healthy and prosperous as we age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think someone, obviously, whose knowledge of the issues is fairly limited. Thank you for sharing what you shared and I appreciate the opportunity to have spoken with you about it and I do feel at least have a sense of the terrain. I hope that our listeners do too. I thought your emphasis earlier on about some of the positive aspects, about using this as an opportunity to think about what the next stage of life is going to be like and what you're going to achieve and your purpose and stuff that resonated quite deeply with me. I think that's an important reflection to have for anyone, but I'm guessing, when you're facing some of the challenges that we've discussed. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Thanks, John. I really appreciate you having me on the podcast. It's been lovely getting to meet you and to talk about this. It's such an important topic.
Speaker 1:It's a shame. It's a shame we're on opposite ends of the earth and we'll probably never meet in person. But you never know, being at work might decide to send me to Australia for something. Before I refine my accent, a little bit when I go I can learn to fake Australian better. Thank you so much Appreciate it Thanks. John Thanks.