Women's health. Are you making it work?

How CAAP can help with women’s health.?

It’s Women’s Health Week this week, a welcome annual spotlight on the many aspects of women’s health. This year, ‘making it work’, is one of the key themes, exploring how we can better support the health of women at work.?

Obviously, the health of women at work matters every week of the year, but this week is an invitation to ask some specific questions about the systems, strategies and support for women’s health in your workplace.?

Women’s health is complex and multifaceted.?

Deciding how best to support women at work can feel overwhelming, and not knowing where to start can put it in the too hard basket.?

To counter this, my CAAP? Strategy provides a framework to help you look at your approach to women’s health in the workplace with fresh eyes.?

• First, get Curious about the current experience of women and health in your workplace. What are the significant health issues or challenges they might be facing. Could they be struggling with overwhelm and burnout, or are they suffering in silence with symptoms around periods, perimenopause, menopause and pelvic pain, without a space in which they can ask for help or support??For example, increasingly, many women in leadership positions choose to step-back from fulltime work during menopause, as they don’t feel supported or secure in asking for consideration around the symptoms of this common female life experience.?
• Next, Accept your role within this. Acceptance doesn’t mean approval. You might accept that things aren’t where they need to be or accept that some decisions are out of your hands, but that doesn’t mean things can’t be changed for the better.?
• Now, it’s time to Ask questions of the people around you - your team members, your colleagues, your leaders. Don’t assume to know what their experience is and try to keep an open mind when you hear their feedback.?Be empathetic in hearing the perspective and lived realities of others around you. Perhaps they feel their health issues are holding them back from career progression, or they don’t feel confident in asking for time out when they’re struggling from overwhelm or the brain fog of menopause. You might be surprised by what comes back.?
• Based on the information you have collected from asking questions of the people around you, Prioritise what is most important. What are the core things that matter to you, your leaders, your team and your organisation related to women’s health, productivity and business objectives? Then decide, what is/are the activity(s) conversation(s), action(s) that will have the most effective impact? Then you can prioritise your precious resources of time and energy accordingly to execute.

The CAAP? framework is a strategy to ask questions and be truly open to what comes back.?

You might also like to try this three-step strategy:

1. What’s wrong? Ask yourself and your team, what isn’t working when it comes to women’s health and work in your organisation??

1. What’s strong? Now you know what’s wrong, flip the script and consider what’s strong? What are you doing that is working, and what could you do more of??

1. What next? Take the answers to the first two questions and use them to inform the actions you take next.?

Now over to you. Will you be using Women’s Health Week to take stock of women’s health in your workplace??

Find more resources online at the Jean Hailes Women’s Health Week website.

If you’d like to find out more about how I can help with a Women’s Health Check Assessment of your workplace, or to help your women and their teams navigate through challenge, change and transitions to reach their potential at work, get in touch or DM me here on LinkedIn.