Monday Mar 14, 2022

#86 Victoria Thomson | Menopause and work: why it’s so important

Today I am interviewing Victoria Thomson who is the Owner of Ambridge HR. Today's episode is part of the series on "HR challenges faced by SME's", where I will be interviewing HR experts on key topics to help SME organisations.

Today we explored menopause in the workplace, policy and how to implement day to day, what does it mean and why. Here is the context for our discussion. According to Professor Jo Brewis, co-author Government Report on Menopause, ‘menopausal women are the fastest growing workforce demographic’, which is highlighted by the Office of National Statistics. The average age for a woman to go through menopause is 51. It can be earlier than this, naturally or due to surgery, or illness. And symptoms may start years before menopause, during the peri-menopause phase. According to the Faculty of Occupational Medicine (FOM), nearly 8 out of 10 of menopausal women are in work. 3 out of 4 women experience symptoms, 1 in 4 could experience serious symptoms. One in three of the workforce will soon be over 50, and retirement ages are now 68.

Victoria shared some valuable advice in how we should implement a policy, support those with menopause and support for the managers too ensuring that everyone is educated and supported throughout the organisation.

Watch the full interview on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T09TfrNm52Y

Connect with Victoria:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriathomsonhr/

Website: https://www.ambridgehr.co.uk/

Email: hr.enquiries@ambridgehr.co.uk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VThomsonHR

Helping SME’s build resilient, high performing teams and businesses, quickly, so they can innovate, deliver, and thrive.

The SME’s I work with typically struggle/suffer/ with one or more of these challenges:

- no clear strategy

- dysfunctional team dynamics

- not knowing their vision or mission