That was the message from travel lawyer Ami Naru, partner and head of employment at Travlaw, who was one of the speakers at the first Travel Talks Menopause event, on Tuesday (23 November 2021).
The discussion featured speakers from across the sector including Andrea Stafford, head of retail at MSC Cruises; Louise Napier, regional director for TravMedia and Hayley Doyle, personal travel consultant and Hays Travel IG member as well as initiative founders Lindsay Garvey-Jones, national retail manager at Holiday Extras and Julie Nunes, regional sales manager, Silversea.
Naru said “more and more employees are embracing menopause at work policies” and warned business leaders: “We can’t hide behind it now - there was a Bupa survey which showed 900,000 women have had to leave their employment because of menopause issues. And the fastest growing sector of the British workforce are women over the age of 50.
“If we don’t deal with it, what’s the outcome going to be?” she questioned. “Women are going to leave at the peak of their experience, you’ve got all those years of experience, and they’re going to leave because they don’t feel supported.”
Naru said if businesses didn’t have effective policies in place it could also lead to gender imbalances in the workplace. “It’s also going to leave skills shortages - there’s going to be that representation gap that we’ve been fighting for years at board level and senior level - it’s going to have a knock on impact on that. And for those companies that have to do gender pay reporting, it will have an impact on that.”
Naru said the menopause was “very much on the government’s agenda”, but she pointed out that “the stigma is still there”.
“It’s got to be okay for women to be able to say at work, ‘it is the menopause [that’s causing them to act a certain way]’, because more often than not, they will say it’s stress or another reason that they’re off work.”
Naru also pointed out “there are around 10 cases that I’m aware of in the last couple of years that got all the way to tribunal because a woman was saying I’d be treated differently because of menopause of the Equality Act.”
She also highlighted that policies around menopause fall “very much” into the theme of diversity and inclusion – “all this very much fits as part of being an open and inclusive culture. It’s going to help prevent discrimination. Speak to your staff, because until you speak to them, you don’t know and don’t assume.
“It’s about reducing that stigma in the workplace. And women feeling comfortable and open to being able to say, ‘I’m struggling’, or ‘I need help’.”
She also urged managers to be to be familiar with some of the most common symptoms.
“So if a woman is in the middle of a meeting, and she’s got her eyes closed, and she’s experiencing hot flushes and she’s not concentrating - instead of saying, ‘oh, let’s get a fan in front of her’ and everyone making jokes about it, there’s a pre-agreed strategy and the manager should just say ‘let’s call it an adjournment’ instead.”
Travel Talks Menopause was founded by Holiday Extras national retail manager Lindsay Garvey-Jones and Silversea’s regional sales manager Julie Nunes to raise awareness in the travel industry around women’s health.
Garvey-Jones said it was crucial that the travel industry “encourages our next generation of leaders to enter a world where effective policies are very much in support of those experiencing the menopause.”
Nunes added “our hope is to see many more companies being at the helm, and making their own plans and decisions to be pioneers in in their approach to the menopause in the workplace, particularly in our industry”.
Daniel Pearce, CEO, TTG Media which was the event’s media partner urged other industry males to “show some solidarity on this issue, to try to listen, empathise and understand”.
“As an ally I want to do personally everything I can to help women continue to thrive and develop their careers in the travel industry,” he told attendees.
Watch the Travel Talks Menopause discussion in full above
