REBA Award winner: Croydon Council - Innovation

Size: 3,600

Sector: Public Sector

Initiative: Menopause Matters

WHAT IT DID
Menopause Matters provides information and support for Croydon Council staff who are going through the menopause, as well as helping to educate others in the workforce and wider community about its effects.

Spearheaded by employees themselves, Menopause Matters has raised awareness of a sensitive wellbeing topic in an accessible, inclusive way. Work on the project started in November 2016, when Croydon Council set up a Menopause Steering Group as part of its Mental Health and Wellbeing Network. It gathered information about the impact of the menopause on the Council’s staff, which is 67 per cent female and 42 per cent aged between 40 and 65.

The steering group concluded that there was a clear business case for tackling the issues women face at work during the menopause. It found that staff in front-facing roles, senior women and those involved in public speaking and training were particularly badly affected. Wearing a uniform or standing for long periods of time also exacerbated symptoms for many women. As a result of its research, the Menopause Steering Group launched Menopause Matters in March 2017 to provide information, resources and support services for women going through the menopause. Menopause Matters also aims to encourage all staff to become more aware of how women at work are affected. Materials include a written guidance document, self-help resources for staff, pages on the council’s intranet site, bite-size training and support groups.

The steering group connected with women across the workforce through staff diversity networks, corporate induction programmes, the intranet, yammer and poster campaigns to raise awareness. Feedback on Menopause Matters has been overwhelmingly positive. In a survey of staff who had attended the bite-sized training and support, the most frequent response was that women no longer “felt alone” in their experience.

It’s not just female workers at the council who have benefitted. Men who manage large teams of women have been interested in training, and an event in October 2018 attracted members of the public as well as staff. They heard from speakers on menopause-related health issues and were able to put questions anonymously to a panel of experts.

As a next step, Croydon Council is encouraging more staff to engage with Menopause Matter’s bite-sized training as part of their career development. This will help to ‘normalise’ conversations about the menopause at work, in the same way as the council has done with mental health issues. The steering group is also encouraging younger women to talk to their daughters about female health issues, to help make future generations become more menopause-aware.

WHY IT WON
Croydon Council is the first local authority to offer this breadth of guidance on the menopause and it is a trailblazer for good practice. It has since shared its work with 12 other public and private sector organisations.

“There is a pent-up demand for menopause information in general,” said one of our judges. “This is a fantastic example of understanding the workforce and implementing a solution that benefits everyone.”

By making bite-size training available to other employee groups, such as male managers and younger staff, Menopause Matters has gone beyond supporting female staff and is helping to break down stigmas. As one of the respondents to the council’s feedback survey said: “It shows that the council is taking the topic of the menopause seriously in a way which has never been thought or talked about before.”