As the first stage of a woman’s journey through menopause, perimenopause deserves its own consideration and support within the workplace. Understanding and driving positive change in your workplace around perimenopause can lay a lot of groundwork for your employees so they are more prepared when entering this life stage.

Want to know more about what perimenopause is? Check out How to manage irritability and feelings of anger in perimenopause.

Employee awareness is up

Women may begin experiencing perimenopause symptoms even while continuing to have regular monthly periods. If women are not aware that this can happen they may not realise that their symptoms are due to perimenopause. However, our findings show a jump in women's awareness of perimenopause - increasing from 76% to 84% in just 2 years.

In fact, 23% of the women we surveyed were identified as being perimenopausal compared with 13% 2 years previously. This increase can be attributed to a greater awareness and understanding of perimenopause among female employees. Coupled with this, we see a significant increase in recognition of the term perimenopause amongst female employees in the same period - going from 69% to 86%.

The perception of ageing

While awareness has clearly increased, our research also reveals that some women feel less inclined to accept perimenopause as they perceive it as a sign of ageing or loss of power. This perception can lead to a delay in seeking help. In fact, of all the women we surveyed, 36% told us that they feel less visible in the workplace as they get older, perhaps a contributing reason as to why some are slow to accept perimenopause.

Workplace discussions

In addition, there is still a reluctance to discuss perimenopause symptoms with employers. Only 19% of perimenopausal women reported doing this, despite 39% saying that their symptoms interfered with work. A significant 74% of all the women surveyed reported not wanting to be treated differently in the workplace due to a women's health issue - this may be one of the reasons for employees not speaking up.

Perimenopause and stress

Among the female employees surveyed, 28% of those who consider their overall stress levels as high are also experiencing perimenopause symptoms. More crucially, this same percentage also believes that they’re more likely to have increased health problems in the future if their current high stress levels are maintained. Given that a woman’s perimenopausal hormones are constantly seeking balance, and that their bodies have to work harder to restore that balance if their stress levels increase, this is an understandable concern for your female workforce to have.

Understanding perimenopause and acting on our insights and findings will help your company in its efforts to best acknowledge and support the experience of perimenopause among your female employees.

The women we surveyed reported a strong interest across many supports to alleviate their perimenopause symptoms, from dietary advice to meditation, access to educational information to yoga and Pilates classes. This suggests the need for employers to create a holistic menopause programme for their employees.

Find out what our experts recommend and how Vhi can support you on our Menopause page.