How do I talk to my employer about my menopause symptoms?

It’s important to be clear about which menopause symptoms are affecting your work performance and what you want from your employer.Ivan Pantic/Getty Images

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Ask Women and Work

Question: I read your article about talking to employers about fertility treatments with interest. I’m past this stage in life and I’m wondering about how to handle menopause conversations at work, specifically what and when to communicate with your employer.

We asked Trish Barbato, co-founder and director of the Menopause Foundation of Canada, to tackle this one:

I wish I could say, ‘Oh, yes. Tell your employer, it will be lovely.’ But that won’t necessarily be the case. It’s definitely tricky, because this is such unchartered territory. Because of that, I think you need to proceed with care.

If you want to disclose, I think you need to be very clear about your symptoms, indicating which symptom is impacting you at work and how is it impacting your work. And what do you want from your employer? I feel like the more clear that you are, the easier it will be for your employer to know what to do.

I’ll give you my example. I got to the point where I thought, I have to disclose, because I couldn’t deal with hiding so much of it and not being honest with my boss. I had many menopause symptoms, but I decided the most relevant to my work was that it took me a lot more time in the morning to pull myself together because of sleep deprivation due to night sweats. So I said, ‘I’m experiencing severe menopause symptoms. They are causing a lot of sleep disruption and it is taking me longer to get ready in the morning. I would like to not have to come into the office until 9:15 or 9:30 a.m., and I will work later to compensate.’ He said, ‘Absolutely, go ahead.’

I feel like I made it easy for him to say yes. I had a solution built in, and I think that can be helpful for employers.

I also think it’s important for individuals to reflect on their new reality and what changes might be needed for them personally. In my own example, I was commuting 45 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes every day to and from work. There was a point where I said, ‘I can’t do this any more. I’m going to need to think about finding different work.’ So it’s also a period of thoughtful self-reflection.

We at the Menopause Foundation of Canada have a report that talks directly to employers about what is happening to their employees. I would suggest sharing it with your human resources department so that your organization is generally aware of this topic. We have over 60 employers signed up to our Menopause Works Here campaign, and that’s growing rapidly. So I feel like we are on a positive rise of awareness, but the gap is still huge.

You could also speak to your human resources person and say, ‘I want us to do an education session on this. Can we have a lunch and learn?’ These kinds of sessions demystify menopause, validating that there are symptoms and helping supervisors understand their role. We need more champions in workplaces who are surfacing the conversation to help make education sessions more accessible to everyone.

Submit your own questions to Ask Women and Work by e-mailing us at GWC@globeandmail.com.

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