18 Oct 2019
World Menopause Day – Support for menopause
“Today is World Menopause Day and it’s time to break the taboo and start talking about it,” says Adѐle MacKinlay, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development.
As part of the People Strategy and the University’s commitment to providing an inclusive and supportive working environment that enhances the wellbeing of all employees, the University has developed a new policy to support those who are experiencing the menopause.
“Women over the age of 50 are the fastest growing segment of the workforce, and most will go through the menopause at some stage in their working life,” says Adѐle. “It's a natural transition but it’s still an unmentionable subject that’s stopping many women from reaching their full potential at work.”
The purpose of the University’s new policy is to ensure all employees know what the menopause can involve for women and can have supportive conversations about it.
“The menopause isn’t just a female issue – it’s an organisational issue,” says Adѐle. “Women experiencing menopause may have additional needs relating to their wellbeing at work and the University wants to support them during this change in their lives.
“We need to raise awareness of the menopause and reduce the stigma attached to it so that more people will talk openly about it, and managers need to know how they can support their staff.”
Today, to coincide with World Menopause Day, purple fans are being placed in meeting rooms across campus. The idea, led by Adѐle and Professor of Social Interaction Elizabeth Stokoe, is designed to help women manage hot flushes, one of the most common, and visible, symptoms of menopause.
Professor Stokoe said: “As someone who experiences sometimes hourly sweaty flushes, I started to carry a fan around that I’d kept from the goodie bag of a recent conference I’d attended. I’d also decided to post a photo of myself mid-sweat on Twitter, suggesting that other women do the same. This was because we only see stock image photos of women looking serene or glamourous in yoga poses, rather than real women actually managing hot flushes. So, I thought it would be a good idea for people to start discovering fans in meeting rooms and make it utterly ordinary to use them.”
Adѐle added: “We want to remove the stigma that continues to surround women’s health matters and to support our staff by making it easy for those who want a fan to access them wherever they are. We’ve started by stealth, by placing fans in meeting rooms. We hope that they quickly become as normal a resource as a jug of water.”