How SMEs can support employee wellbeing across menstruation, menstrual health and menopause.

When it comes to employee’s health and wellbeing, many SME leaders mistakenly believe that ‘wellbeing strategies’ are confined to large corporations. Surely the only organisations that can afford such strategies are big conglomerates with plenty of cash to spare, right???

Improving employee wellbeing increases engagement, productivity and performance. It also decreases stress levels, sick leave and employee turnover.

The reality is that employee wellbeing is key to achieving business growth – regardless of the size of your business. Likely spurred on by the negative impacts still felt from the pandemic and exacerbated by the current cost of living crisis, the financial case for maintaining employee wellbeing is being recognised now more than ever.?

However, there are some relatively easy steps than can be taken to improve wellbeing for SMEs and therefore improve the performance of their business.

Support

It's so vitally important to have support in place for those who are experiencing the challenges of managing menstrual health and menopause symptoms whilst at work. If you have an?Employee Assistance Programme?in place, make sure your people know about it. Investigate the offerings available to your people through any charities that support your industry and again, make sure your people know what’s available to them internally. Having policies or guidance documents in place that provide effective signposting can be hugely valuable to someone seeking support.

It’s also worth considered investing in wellbeing champions in your organisation who can provide that critical point of contact for colleagues when required. ?If this could potentially work well for your business, consider what those champion roles will entail and set them up for success with training, support structures and sponsorship from leadership.

Raise awareness of menstruation, menstrual health and menopause in the workplace. Engage your team in educational sessions where they can become more in tune with signs, symptoms and treatment options. Providing whole-business training in these areas can really help build those inclusive working environments where people can freely discuss how they're feeling.

Nurture

Managers have a huge impact on the wellbeing of the people in their teams. What steps have you taken to ensure that your people managers have the people skills they need to be able to effectively manage their team members? Managing people requires an extremely diverse skillset, so support your managers with the training and guidance they need to develop these valuable skills.?

Training managers in having challenging conversations, broadening their knowledge of taboo subjects (like Menstrual Health & Menopause), helping them to signpost colleagues in need and equipping them with the skills to provide empathetic support are all crucial pieces of their professional development.?

Encourage your people to collaborate and build good relationships with one another. This can be through support groups, shared projects, social activities, or more formal buddy or mentoring programmes.? Peer to peer support and work friendships can make a sizeable difference to people’s happiness and wellbeing at work.?

Prevent

Prevention is ALWAYS better than cure. Start by looking at your business’s work habits.

Consider the working patterns of your people. Most people appreciate flexibility in their working hours or location. Where business allows, make this possible by offering flexible hours and allowing people to work from home should they need to manage their symptoms. It’s also good practice to keep a close eye on your people’s working hours. Make sure workloads are manageable and encourage people to take breaks, take holiday and leave at a reasonable time. Better still, role model these behaviours yourself.?

Consider job design. Do your people know what’s expected of them, do they have what they need to get their work done? Are your people in roles that are well suited to them and enable them to use their strengths? Do they understand how the work they do impacts the organisation??

It's also important to consider your work environments – are they conducive to supporting wellbeing. Can people access fresh air, are uniforms suitable for all, do people have access to breakout facilities, are their desks ergonomically suitable?

And finally, don’t try and boil the ocean! You’ll be amazed what small changes in these areas can have on the lives of those experiencing wellbeing challenges.

Most workplace menstrual health and menopause interventions can be small and cost-effective. Often just by putting these subjects forward as a topic of conversation can be a great first step in promoting positive workplace cultures.

Please?don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to open up a conversation about making your workplace menstruation, menstrual health and menopause friendly: [email protected]

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