Gillespie Manners Launch Menstruation & Menopause Policy

Last week I delivered a training session on the launch of our brand-new policy to support all people who experience Menstruation and Menopause. A policy many months in the making, with contributions from an array of inspirational and talented colleagues. Policies around menstruation and menopause aren’t new – they’ve been launched and trialled by a handful of companies across the globe. But they’ve not yet gathered mainstream traction. So, I’d like to share a little about our journey towards launching this policy to help spread awareness to my fellow business leaders and HR professionals.

I’ve spent the last six years working in Executive Search, a specialized form of recruitment aimed at headhunting niche talent for global businesses. I absolutely adore my work, and after six years I’m now in a position to mentor and train newer generations of Executive Searchers. Whilst our workforce skews just slightly into a female majority (56%), there’s no denying that Executive Search and recruitment, in general, are industries alive with very masculine energy. Our work is highly result-oriented, and there can sometimes be pressure felt by everybody to check emotions at the door and present a strong, confident front in order to successfully act as trusted advisors to our clients – titans of global industry.

As part of my role, I offer coaching to members of my team and wider business, and a key theme I’ve observed is a struggle between the duality of traditionally feminine and masculine energies in our workplace. The truth is that both are vital in our people-centric business. We require rational, logical thinking and approaches to project delivery, but at the same time, we benefit greatly from utilizing compassion, intuition and relationship building in our client-facing work. After all, our work is human-centric. The barrier is not in how these energies can work together, but in how our internalized perceptions can block us from successfully expressing both. To break this barrier down we need to de-stigmatize female experiences in the workplace.

I believe that one such step toward building a more equitable and diverse environment is to break stigmas around menstruation and menopause, and how female hormone patterns can affect the energy and productivity of women in the workplace. Over the last year, I’ve learned that symptoms of menstruation are linked to nearly 9 days of productivity lost annually through presenteeism, the act of turning up to work without being productive. As many as 57% of women have said that menstruation pains have affected their ability to work, yet only 27% of women whose performance has been affected by period pain have ever admitted the cause to their employer. 31% gave their employer another reason, while 33% said nothing at all. (It’s also important here to acknowledge that not all women will experience menstruation or menopause, and not all people who experience menstruation or menopause will be women.)

I know that I have personally been guilty of this – of making up excuses as to why I can’t make it into the office during my period. Of blaming my menstruation pains on a stomach bug. But menstruation and menopause aren’t illnesses, and they don’t deserve to be treated as such. They form a natural cycle of hormones and energies, and while adverse symptoms of menstruation can affect moods, productivity and efficiency, they’re paralleled by spikes in energy, creativity and prolificacy at other points in the cycle. Understanding this pattern can empower people who menstruate to increase their overall productivity, by leaning into the lows and stepping up to the spikes in their energy.

In order to foster more open communication and personal autonomy over wellbeing and efficiency in our workplace, I’ve put together a menstruation and menopause policy. The policy encourages people experiencing adverse symptoms of menstruation or menopause to initiate open dialogues with colleagues and managers. The policy strives to make reasonable adjustments for anybody working whilst experiencing symptoms, such as providing the option to work from a quiet area of the building or offering flexible working. The policy also aims to help raise awareness of female hormone cycles and patterns and encourage self-advocacy. It’s my hope that this policy will help us to move closer to building the inclusive and diverse environment that I know we can foster.

Menstruation and menopause policies are an emerging cause, having been trailed by several businesses around the world, but they've yet to break into the mainstream. I’m truly excited to watch the impact of this policy over the next year, and I look forward to sharing our results over the next months and years. In the meantime, I’m as committed as ever to furthering Gillespie Manners' advancements toward equality and inclusion and hope to share more updates on initiatives and policies very soon.

By Lizzy Kurtzer

Lizzy manages the Supply Chain and Manufacturing practice at Gillespie Manners, overseeing a team of 9 Consultants and Researchers in their delivery of senior and C-level roles across the UK, EMEA, US and APAC. Lizzy is an Animas centre qualified coach and is currently studying towards a certification in menstrual cycle awareness accredited by the International Institute for Complementary Therapists.