270 - Managing menopause at work: how to help yourself and your colleagues

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Dr Louise Newson

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Medicine

4.8 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Menopausal women are the fastest-growing demographic in the UK workforce, yet a 2022 survey by the Fawcett Society found one in ten women leave work due to their menopause symptoms. This week, Dr Louise is joined by Oonagh Ferson, who researched the experiences of perimenopausal and menopausal women in the workplace as part of her MSc in HR management at Queens University Belfast. Oonagh shares her research findings and some of the stories of women she interviewed, and with Dr Louise discusses the impact of perimenopause, menopause and other conditions such as PMS and PMDD in the workplace. Oonagh offers advice on how women can thrive at work, including the three things she believes would make the biggest difference to women in the workplace: A bottom up approach, where employers sit down with women and ask them: what would help you? What can we do? Even though it may be difficult at times, advocate for yourself: be open with your employer to secure the support or adjustments you need Having open discussions, using clear language and avoiding terms like ‘the change’, can help dispel the stigma around menopause There is a chapter dedicated to menopause and the workplace in Dr Louise’s bestselling book, The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause. Order your copy by clicking here. Click here for more about Newson Health.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr Louise Newsome. I'm a GP and menopause specialist, and I'm also the founder of the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-Pon-Avon.
0:21.6	I'm also the founder of the free Balance app.
0:25.6	Each week on my podcast, join me and my special guests where we discuss all things perimenopause
0:31.6	and menopause. We talk about the latest research, bust myths on menopause symptoms and treatments,
0:38.2	and often share moving and always inspirational personal stories.
0:43.7	This podcast is brought to you by the Newsome Health Group,
0:46.9	which has clinics across the UK dedicated to providing individualised perimenopause and menopause care for all women.
1:02.8	Today on my podcast, I've got someone called Una with me who reached out to me a while ago
1:07.3	and very kindly sent me a copy of her master's dissertation. And it was a focus on
1:13.3	menopause in the workplace, which is something that we talk about a lot and the stories I hear
1:18.5	of women giving up their jobs or reducing their hours because of their symptoms and they've been
1:23.6	unable to get help. Sadly, the stories are still there and I hear them most days.
1:28.5	So welcome to the podcast, Unan. Thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. So do you mind
1:33.0	just saying a bit about your background and why you decided to do this dissertation? Yes. So I began
1:39.9	studying September last year, a master's in HR management at Queen's University. And I came to sort
1:47.5	of deciding on our dissertation topics. And for me, I kind of had a personal interest in this topic
1:55.1	because my mom, unfortunately, had gone through a pretty rough time with menopause and she was still working full time.
2:04.5	And I just, you know, trying to see what support was out there for women in the workplace.
2:09.5	There didn't seem to be a lot.
2:11.1	So I wanted to take the opportunity to research it and, you know, hopefully come up with some answers that could perhaps help women
2:19.6	who are struggling with this in the workplace. So you interviewed some women, didn't you? Yeah,
2:26.7	I interviewed 18 women in total. I was very lucky I attended the event that you spoke at in
	...

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