The Impact of Menopause at Work with Tessa, Laura, and Michael

In this special episode, Laura, Tessa, and Michael discuss Tessa's groundbreaking research on how menopause impacts women in the workplace. 

Tessa shares surprising statistics from an extensive global survey conducted by Korn Ferry Institute and Vira Health that reveal the lack of awareness and support around this issue. Laura also shares her personal experience with menopause and how it influenced her decision to leave a job. 

Tessa emphasizes the importance of employers providing clinical support and creating a culture of psychological safety for menopausal women.

The co-hosts explore how organizations can better support employees through this and other major life transitions. This enlightening conversation sheds new light on an under-discussed topic with big implications for women's careers and workplaces everywhere.

To stay connected and continue the conversation, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn.

And don't forget to check out our previous episodes for more tips and strategies to boost your workplace happiness. You can find them on your favorite podcast platform or on our website.

If you have any questions, comments, or topic suggestions for future episodes, please reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you!

Stay inspired, stay motivated, and stay happy at work!

Transcript

Laura Hamill: 0:06

Welcome back for another episode of the happy at work podcast, with Laura, Tessa and Michael.

Tessa Misiaszek: 0:14

Each week we have thoughtful conversations with leaders, founders and authors about happiness at work.

Michael McCarthy: 0:22

Tune in each Thursday for a new conversation. Enjoy the show.

Laura Hamill: 0:38

So today we've got a special session, we are going to talk with Tess about some of the really interesting and important research that Korn Ferry has just done around menopause, and how it impacts women in the workplace. I'm excited for this conversation.

Tessa Misiaszek: 0:55

I am too this is a conversation I've been wanting to have with you both for for quite some time since we started this research, gosh, almost six months ago.

Laura Hamill: 1:06

Yeah. Awesome. And, Michael, I'm glad you're here for this conversation too.

Michael McCarthy: 1:10

Thank you for including me, because I have lots of questions, especially about the research as well as you know, what are the best ways for for men to interact in the workplace with this, like, what are the...what are the rules of the road? Like what's what's the best way to be supportive? So, Laura, do you want to start us off?

Laura Hamill: 1:31

First question, let's do it. So really, let's just start from the beginning. And can you tell us what led Korn Ferry and specifically the group that you're a part of and running Korn Ferry Institute to conduct this research on how menopause impacts women in the workplace?

Tessa Misiaszek: 1:48

Yeah, I appreciate that question. Because it depends on where you are in the world right now as to whether or not this is a topic that's being highly discussed. And I think it's being more discussed in the western part of the world versus Eastern. But honestly, it was about a year ago that a senior client partner out of the UK because in the UK and Emilia, Emilia, being Europe for the most part, that region of the world, they have been doing a lot over the past two years as a relates to really establishing equity rights and passing legislation to be able to bring more of an even playing ground as it relates to life transitions that really can impact people in the workplace employees in the workplace, including perimenopause and menopause. And even countries like Spain have actually recently passed legislation to take into account menstrual leave, which you know, for some women who go through menstruation and have a lot of symptoms that that disrupt their daily lives so that they can actually get some recourse as far as getting time off work and not having any sort of penalties for that. So it was a it was a colleague of mine in the UK who came to us and asked if we had thought ever about doing any sort of survey or research and that there was a fantastic company in the UK called Vera health that was actually founded by Andrea Berkowitz who was building this platform for women to come together and talk about their experiences related to perimenopause and menopause as well as to provide clinical support. And so I was able to, through this colleague be able to connect with Andrea, we had a couple conversations Andrea has Andrew Berkowitz has a TED Talk that actually has I think a million and a half views around how perimenopause and menopause impacts women at work. So we actually decided to partner and just do one of the largest surveys of 1000 women globally to really find out what is the impact specifically at work for women who are going through this perimenopause, menopause transition. And if you think about it, because one of the questions I always get is, Well, I mean, would you talk about menopause at work? Like why is that even appropriate? And if you think about it, we talk about reproductive health, especially in North America at work because employers are the primary source of health care in the US and so there's lots of you know, legislation and policy that takes into account when women are having starting families and maternity leave and paternity leave and all of these things fertility adoption have to do with the beginning of the reproductive you know, kind of lifecycle and and takes into account those types of issues and the times where families might need to take a little bit of time off work in order to start their families. And again, this is important legislation and policy that came into place to keep women in the pipeline at in business, but then we kind of forgot about the other side. At the other end of the reproductive lifecycle, which is perimenopause and menopause, and because it's a topic that's rarely discussed, and it's really mostly just women talking with their friends and, and their colleagues about it that I think there's a real lack of awareness as to how it for some women, not all women, but for some women upwards of 80% of women, that they can have symptoms that disrupt their daily lives. And so, you know, how does that impact their their work? How does that impact their ability to work every day? Or do they have to take time off work? How does that impact the way that they feel like they're advancing in the workplace? So that was a topic that we were super interested and studying and learning more about?

Michael McCarthy: 5:45

I love the fact that the study seems like it's pretty large, the survey of 8000 people, and you know how much everyone on this podcast loves the data? What are some of the highlights of the of the research? What did you find out?

Tessa Misiaszek: 5:58

Yeah, I and I appreciate that. Honestly, some of the highlights and the data were a little bit shocking to the point where we were all kind of looking at each other when the data came in and said, Is this too provocative to share? Because it really was surprising. As to the level of impact the perimenopause and menopause can have on women and the in the lack of awareness around this type of impact. So just a few highlights from our study. So 90% of women who responded to the survey reported that they missed a week of work or more in any given month. So that's almost one in five women are missing a week or more of work in any given month, due to symptoms related to perimenopause and menopause. And when we talk about symptoms we asked about symptomatology, in our in our survey, and we're talking about things like insomnia, brain fog, anxiousness, anxiety, you know, those types of symptoms, you know, pain, discomfort, those types of symptoms that can really be disruptive, hot flashes, of course, that can be very disruptive to a woman when they're trying to work. Um, when we asked about whether or not women felt like there was a negative impact on their career advancement, 61% of women reported that they felt they had one or more of these types of events that really impacted their career advancement. So that means loss of promotion, loss of bonus, them having to take time off of work and so forth. So 61% of women had some sort of an event that they felt like impacted their career progression solely because of perimenopause and menopause. One in four women again, disproportionately, Senior Executive Women have either left their jobs approximately about 12% of women have left their jobs in the past year due to perimenopause or menopause, and that an additional 13% planned to leave their jobs in the next year. So that's one in four women, disproportionately senior executives, have either left the jobs or planned to leave their jobs in the next year. And 26% of women surveyed felt that they were supported by workplace policies, three out of four women felt like they received very little support at all. And in fact, only about a little over 30% of women felt like they even had support from a doctor through their perimenopause and menopause journeys. So these are startling statistics, that if you think about for a company who might have been putting in a lot of effort to keep women in the pipeline, to be able to achieve these types of metrics, like 25% of women on boards are 30 to 40% of women in the C suite by 2025, or 2030. Whatever the statistic might be, the metric might be that if you're not accounting for how perimenopause, menopause impacts women in the workplace, then you might be missing a huge piece that is really inhibiting women from advancing at work. So if you felt like these statistics, just brought light to a real issue as it as it pertains to how women advance at work.

Laura Hamill: 9:23

Wow, test that. I mean, amazing that you all did this research. I just so important, because I'm one of those 12%, right. I'm one of the people who quit, in retrospect, not completely because I was going through menopause, but that is now just though, in retrospect, when it was happening. I just wasn't aware of it. And honestly, you know, through my whole career, nobody's really talked about menopause ever. I think I joked about it a couple times, right? I remember women who I worked with who are older than me, you know teasing about having hot flashes. but not really talking about how hard it is to keep working when you're going through that. And so for me, there was this whole combination of events, but I literally was going through menopause, having like, it hit me on a plane, I was on a plane to the UK. And all of a sudden, like, every hour, I was having this hot flash, and I had never had hot flashes before. And it was almost like clockwork, on every hour. And it was, you know, sort of humorous in a way, I guess, you were just pouring sweat and then freezing cold, pouring sweat freezing cold. So I can live through that though each one of them by themselves wasn't the end of the world. I mean, I've had babies, right, so I can, I can handle this. But what was really hard for me was the fact that I couldn't sleep. So I would wake me up, and I'd be awake for a bit, finally fall asleep, and then wake up from being freezing. And that would happen and happen and happen to happen. So the lack of sleep is what started to really get to me. And so anyway, my point of like sharing that whole thing is, I was shocked at how hard it hit me. It was also right the month that COVID Hit the world, right? So there was all this awful stuff happening in the world, this wild stuff happening to my body. It was really dramatic. And at the same time, there was a lot of stuff going on with my work. And so I looked back at that time, and I got really, really frustrated with my work to the point where I decided to leave. That was legitimate. There was no plenty, there are plenty of things to get frustrated about. But I wonder is I look back on it. If I hadn't been going through all of the the really hard things that were hitting me from going through menopause. What I had, I've had a little bit more what I would have been able to I think you'd use the term ride the wave a little bit longer would I have a little bit more backup, you know, in my system, because I wasn't I wasn't sleeping. And so I don't know, it was really, really hard to go to go through that. And I wish I'd had like even could talk about it like even to know to talk about. So that's why I'm grateful that you've done this research. And then you're you're talking about it?

Tessa Misiaszek: 12:18

No, I really appreciate that is I do think it's really important to highlight. So we looked at women across demographics. And we did ask about work position. So we had everyone from board members and CEOs all the way down to frontline workers. And what was so interesting was that we did we did ask about fearful are you fearful about perimenopause, menopause versus optimistic. And then we also asked about support. So when we actually stratified the data, what we found was that women who had financial means who had options to make decisions about their career, primarily disproportionately senior executive, women who by the way, are at their highest earning most productive years, who are probably the ones who, if we're ever going to achieve pay equity, it's important that we have them in the in the pipeline. They were the ones who were actually the ones leaving, whereas those who were on the front lines who did not have the financial means to have the choice to leave work. We're not just not only did they not leave work, but they actually were the most fearful group. So they were feeling they're feeling awful. And they know that they have to show up for work every day because they don't have the the financial options to have that choice. And so it just is so important for employers to understand, you know, that the importance of making support services available for women across the spectrum of different roles within the workplace, and to understand that it can hit anywhere from 35 to 40 years old, all the way up to 55 to six years old. I mean, it's really like a 20 year timeline. And for a lot of women, it's about a 10 year journey. And that's like once you hit menopause, which actually lasts forever, right? Be right when you hit menopause, which is on average, 50 to 53 years old and actually lasts forever. So so your status quo even at 50 to 53 may not be your most comfortable stage, right. So unless you're getting support, clinical support, and other types of support from the workplace, it can be a really challenging piece. I do want to mention that for 20% of women on average, they they fly through it, right. And so if you ever have a woman saying, oh, menopause didn't really affect me, they were probably the 20% where it doesn't affect but 80% of women and they're going to have at least one symptom and actually in our research 64% of women reported at least one symptom that disrupted their daily lives. Yeah. And so you know, that's, that's a majority of women who are having symptoms that are disrupting their daily lives. So it should be enough for employers to kind of wake up and say, maybe maybe we need to provide support. Or maybe we need to do something here.

Laura Hamill: 15:15

That mean just that statistic, I think is so important, because I sort of felt like my the only one who is having this kind of an experience, and it felt like the people there were a couple people that were older than me that I talked to, and they're like, oh, yeah, nothing that didn't bother me at all, like,

Tessa Misiaszek: 15:32

just Lucky you.

Laura Hamill: 15:35

So the variability in symptoms and experiences is another part that makes this hard, right? It's, it's everybody's different in terms of how it impacts them. But it's good to hear like to hear that statistic of, you know, I wasn't just like one, one person who experienced it, most people actually have things that are hard about it. Absolutely.

Michael McCarthy: 15:59

You know, it surprised me, and I love the research and reading the report. But what stood out the most for me is this was never on my radar. It, it's never been on anyone else's radar that they discussed with me, it was like this subject that just has never been a subject. But the numbers, the statistics are huge. And and they're meaningful. It's like we've we've missed this. And I'm wondering, are we missing other types of major life transitions in the workplace that we should be putting on our radar?

Tessa Misiaszek: 16:35

Yeah, I mean, I, Michael, I think that that is such an important question, because I do think this can open up the conversation as we have Baby Boomers and Gen X, right kind of aging up into upper management, if not retiring. And then you've got Millennials behind them the large one of the largest population since baby boomers, but with the, you know, lengthening of life expectancy and the ability to keep people alive longer and putting them into care facilities. You also have other types of life transitions. Like for instance, I have asked a number of employers, that's fantastic that you are offering benefits around daycare, are you offering benefits around aging parents, because if you also look at Gen Xers or young baby boomers who are also who are going through perimenopause or menopause, and they're dealing with adult children, which who have adult problems as well as aging parents. That's, you know, at the end of the day, if I if I feel crappy, I've got an aging parent who I've got to care for I've got adult children who are complicated. And then I've got a job on top of that, like something's gonna give, right? And so it's really about how can employers look at the total lifecycle of the employee and think about different ways to care for these different life transitions. And for women, it's perimenopause, menopause. For men, it's low tea, like there's other types. There's prostate cancer, which is quite prevalent. In male populations, there's lots of different types of things that can happen, both to women and men as they age. And it's not to say that we want to give up on this population, because they have all the institutional knowledge they have, the experience is so critical to our workplaces, and they have the opportunity to really advance the workplace. Yet, if we're not caring for them through these different types of life transitions, including caring for aging parents, that I think employers are not getting the most out of their employees, and they're certainly not operationalizing, those brand values that they might be espousing about, as it relates to, you know, whether it's family or caring, or integrity or trust. Like if you're not thinking about all that your employees might be going through and how you can provide some just minimal support to help them get through the day. Then, as an employer, you know, you're not really being authentic in the values that you're espousing. Are

Laura Hamill: 19:04

you seeing any companies like any specific examples that you can see from companies that you've been talking to or, or companies even that they're talking about doing? That are specific ways that they could show people support, especially as they're going through menopause or perimenopause? Have you seen any good examples?

Tessa Misiaszek: 19:22

Yeah. So that I mean, that is the number one question I get, because, honestly, we start sharing this data and people are like, Well, gosh, I didn't know this existed. But now that I do, what do I do? You know, like, and I do think what's really important, if you were to actually read the full research report is that at the end of the day, women who feel like they get support from an ecosystem of support, right? So we're not just talking, not just their doctor acknowledging that they're going through perimenopause or menopause, which by the way, in North America is a challenge in and of itself because of that. The history of the Women's Health Initiative in 2001. And the research that came out around the link between HRT and breast cancer. And so that created a lot of, you know, fear fear, as far as being able to prescribe medications to help address perimenopause menopause symptoms. But since then, you know, in 24 years, there has been a lot of new research data, new studies have come out around that plus new new medications and new clinical support. And so there's a lot of options now for women. But unfortunately, in our medical system in the North America, not necessarily the UK or Mather, they're a bit more advanced than we are here. But in North America, women really have to seek out support. So I do think that there needs to be within the employee in an employee, sorry, and employer based health care system, the employer needs to step up and say, Okay, what is our insurance that we carry? What is it what benefits are they providing to women? Are they providing medications? Are they providing other types of support, and so forth. There are also a number of new platforms that provide clinical support that provide other types of well being support for women. So I think being able to look at how to address clinical symptoms is important. But it definitely does not stop there. I think there's a lot of options that employers can look at as a relates to the culture. Having a culture of psychological safety. There's a reason why 75% of women who left the workplace due to perimenopause, menopause did not tell their employer why they were leaving, right. So it's really important that you have a culture of support that you have a culture where people feel like they can share what their experiences are without any sort of recourse, negative recourse coming back to them. It's also about coaching, it's about being able to offer women opportunities for advancement and coaching. It's about flexible work arrangements, right? If you're going through a period of having hot flashes on the hour, every hour, it's hard to report into an office and sit in a conference room while you're sweating to that, right. So being able to have a flexible work arrangements that if you don't feel great on a day, you can actually work remotely without any sort of recourse. Again, that's important. So it really it needs to be a multi pronged, you know, ecosystem of support. But we just have to start with the basics at this stage of the game, because you know, in North America alone, and can only about one in three women even feel supported clinically. For them perimenopause and menopause symptoms. So if you're a woman who doesn't have access to means or doesn't have access to additional resources that the average woman have might have access to, I mean, you really don't have a lot of options. So we need to open up those conversations for all women, so that everyone can have equity and access to resources. And then hopefully, employers will also step up and realize that this is a really important issue. And

Michael McCarthy: 22:59

what about the co workers? So like, if I'm just sitting next to you, and and I'm just, you know, your your DeskMate? What are what are best practices for, for me to be supportive? Like, what should I do not do any any? Any advice?

Tessa Misiaszek: 23:17

Yeah, no, I think that's a great question, Michael, because 70% of the women in our survey actually said that 70% talked to colleagues at work about their experience. So they're talking to their colleagues, they're just not telling their boss, they're not telling their employer. So I think people are really open to talking about it their own personal experience. I do think if you looked at employee resource groups for perimenopause and menopause at work, you probably would, you know, employee resource groups that get established for a number of different reasons for diverse populations, to be able to even take this piece of it, I do think is, is probably an important factor. But the important thing to realize is that for men as much as it is for women, this is an important conversation, because for many men, their partners, their sisters, or mothers have also gone through this. So I have had so many conversations, where literally our head of benefits actually remembered as a young boy, his mother's experience and how hard it was for her. And so that's why he was so committed to doing something around this topic, because he remembered his mom going through it. Or people might have a wife who has gone through to her sister, and so far. So I do think there's a lot of people who can relate to this. But honestly, no one thinks to even bring it up. And so it's not until we start talking about it, just bringing awareness through data, which isn't always a great way to bring awareness for topics, show the data, and then you can start having some really great conversations about it.

Michael McCarthy: 24:48

And how about the people specifically like me, where I grew up in a family household where everything's fine, and if something isn't, we lie about it. So I never had my mother's or my sister experience but, you know, if I'm your if I'm your your DeskMate My first reaction might be, I'm just going to say nothing because I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing. So what would you say to people that their hearts in the right place, but they don't want to mess up? Any thoughts?

Tessa Misiaszek: 25:16

I think that's such a great question. Laura, what would you say to that?

Laura Hamill: 25:21

That's, I've already? Yeah, it's a really hard one. Um, maybe just is there anything I can do to help? Or you are? How are you doing? Okay. You know, that must just a little empathy, right? That must be hard.

Tessa Misiaszek: 25:36

I think it's going in without assumptions. But if you see someone struggling, or if you see someone exhausted, or if you see someone who's, you know, going through a hard time, just Yeah, open up with empathy and just say, is there anything I can do to help? Or do you want to talk and just see if they open up. But I do think if organizations proactively lead with this data to say, hey, you know, Korn Ferry Institute or, you know, the, actually the Mayo Clinic did a huge study on this and actually saw I think, was $1.8 billion in lost productivity in a given year in North America due to perimenopause, menopause. There's lots of work being done in this space. So just to bring the research kind of to the forefront, and to say, hey, this, this was shocking to me, what do you think about this research? I mean, just to open up conversations, I think also will, will help in the workplace, because you're leading with the data, and then people are kind of free to open up as they feel comfortable to open up. But again, I think what was most shocking was that even though just about 1/3, of, of those who reported in our survey, told their employers told their workplaces felt like there was workplace workplace policies across the board. 70%, we're talking to colleagues about it. So they they're talking about it. It's just they're not talking to their employer about it. That's

Laura Hamill: 26:58

why I think this work is so good as you've got such compelling data and it gets you it gets people talking and thinking about it, I look back and think if I had more exposure or awareness to just thinking about how this was affecting me at work, right. I wonder, you know, I wonder how the things would have been different if I just it was more of a dialogue, conversation. So thank you so much, Tessa, this is such a good conversation that we had today. I just really think that more organizations need to have these conversations and talk about this. Yeah.

Tessa Misiaszek: 27:32

Appreciate giving you giving me this platform to be a guest rather than

Michael McCarthy: 27:39

me, we hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to hear future episodes, be sure to subscribe to the happy at work podcast, and leave us a review with your thoughts. Are

Tessa Misiaszek: 27:54

you interested in speaking on a future episode or want to collaborate with us? Let us know you can send us an email at admin at happy at work podcast.com

Laura Hamill: 28:06

And lastly, follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter for even more happiness. See you soon