How to choose the right workplace wellbeing support for women
Endometriosis, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), fertility treatment, pregnancy loss, perimenopause and menopause are all common. They tend to arrive in someone's thirties, forties and fifties, when she is often at her most senior and hardest to replace.
Without support, people cut their hours, turn down promotions or go off sick and never fully return. The cost shows up years later, in a leadership team with far fewer experienced women in it.
If you’re weighing up what to offer, or wondering whether what you have is working, this is where we’d start.
Cover every age and circumstance
Menopause tends to dominate HR conversations, but women's health doesn't sit in one age bracket. You'll have employees dealing with fertility treatment, pregnancy loss, endometriosis and menopause at every level of the business, and many won't tell a manager or HR. Someone in her late twenties could be going through IVF. Someone in her early forties could be facing early menopause. Support that only works for one group leaves everyone else with nothing.
Ask whether it's clinical care or information
Much of what's sold as women's health support is content: articles, webinars, a helpline. That's a starting point, not care, and employees notice the difference. Ask providers direct questions. Are the practitioners specialists, certified in menopause or fertility care, or generalist wellbeing coaches? Can they diagnose, prescribe or refer? Will an employee see the same person each time, or start from scratch? If not, you're paying for content with a health label.
Check what it adds to your EAP and PMI
Most mid-sized and large employers already have both. Neither was designed for specialist menopause, fertility or women's health care. Before buying anything new, work out where your current cover stops. A good provider will show you exactly where its service picks up from your existing benefits, rather than duplicating them.
Treat confidentiality as non-negotiable
Would you want to tell your line manager about IVF or a miscarriage before you could get help? Most people wouldn't. If that's the route in, take-up will be low however good the clinical care is. Ask what data comes back to the business and what a line manager sees, and press for a specific answer. It should be anonymised and aggregated.
Design for the whole workforce
Many services are built around one narrow version of the employee. Trans and non-binary employees, same-sex couples going through fertility treatment, and people without children all have different needs. Culture, religion and neurodivergence also shape how people experience reproductive health and menopause. Ask providers what they've done to reflect that range.
Know your legal position
Women’s health is moving up the employment law agenda. Menopause symptoms can already fall under the Equality Act 2010 as sex, age or disability discrimination, and pregnancy and maternity are protected characteristics. The Employment Rights Act 2025 goes further.
From 2027, employees are expected to get a day-one right to unpaid bereavement leave that covers pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. Protection from dismissal for pregnant women and new mothers is set to strengthen. Employers with 250 or more staff will need to publish an action plan that includes menopause support, expected to become mandatory from April 2027.
Putting proper support in place is the right thing to do. It also puts you ahead of where the law is heading.
The cost of waiting
Every year this goes unaddressed, experienced women are working out on their own whether their job is still workable. You'll notice later, when you look at who's left in senior roles. Good support is one of the most direct ways to keep people the business has spent years developing.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Peppy
Peppy is a global app-based employee benefit giving employees access to expert clinical care in menopause, fertility, pregnancy, and more - trusted by 250+ companies and reaching over 3 million people.
