Thistles, Davina McCall and brain fog

Something that’s been getting more column inches in recent years?

Menopause; in no small part down to the work of Davina McCall.

The attention around the subject doesn’t look like it’ll change anytime soon either – there was a story just the other day about a case related to menopause that went to employment tribunal.

SPOILER ALERT: the employee won.

Karen Farquharson had been working for Thistle Marine for 27 years, and in 2021 she told them that she had the menopause.

The symptoms including bleeding, anxiety, loss of concentration and brain fog, and resulted in her having time off sick.

According to her boss though, everybody has “aches and pains”, with his general attitude being that she should get on with it, and that menopause wasn’t an excuse.

Cue grievance launched, starting the chain of events that led to her winning ￡37,000 at tribunal.

I’ve seen an awful lot over the years, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is just the tip of the iceberg – there’ll be hundreds more of these cases over the coming years, until the world of employment gets to grips with the menopause.

And if you don’t want to fall foul of it in your business, I strongly recommend you get a Menopause Policy in place – if you want to talk it through, you know where I am.

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Jacqui

Jacqui Mann, Managing Director | www.jmassociates.org

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