Menopause in the workplace: silence is pushing experienced women out

“I would say that this is very topical for us because it probably impacts about 60 per cent of our female workforce, which is huge,” Pietersz says.

Even so, the conversation has barely started. “Menopause is just something that has not been spoken about,” she says. “It’s been a bit of a hush-hush, or there’s a ridiculous level of discomfort around it.”

How menopause symptoms hit performance and retention

Pietersz describes a predictable chain reaction when women get no support with their symptoms: “Firstly, disengagement followed by possibly attrition followed by performance management, which is the go-to unfortunately in HR circles.” Then the employer recruits again, “and you’ve lost all of that, those years of experience.”

Research supports what she has seen. A cross-sectional study of 407 women at an Irish teaching hospital, published in Occupational Medicine in 2023, looked at how often each symptom affected women at work.

More than half the time, respondents were affected by fatigue (54 per cent), difficulty sleeping (47 per cent), poor concentration (44 per cent) and poor memory (40 per cent). Some 65 per cent said symptoms had hurt their work performance, and 18 per cent had taken sick leave.