What will your menopause action plan show in 12 months?

Most large UK employers have a menopause policy. Far fewer have something they could publish. That gap is about to matter.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 asks employers with 250 or more employees to publish an equality action plan. It has to cover two things. Their gender pay gap, and how they support employees experiencing menopause.

Publication has been voluntary since April. Subject to secondary legislation, it is expected to become mandatory from spring 2027. The plan goes on the government's gender pay gap service, next to your pay gap data. Employees, candidates, unions and competitors can all read it.

What action plans must include

A policy sets out your organisation's position. An action plan sets out what you intend to do and how you will know whether it has made a difference.

You select from the government's defined list of actions, including at least one of the six menopause actions. You then state whether each action is starting, still building or already embedded. At least two must be new or in progress.

After twelve months, the plan is reviewed against what actually happened. This is where broad statements of intent can fall short: values are difficult to measure.

How to choose actions you can back up

It can be tempting to choose the actions that are easiest to get started. Instead, think about what you will be able to show a year from now.

The government guidance sets out six steps for creating an action plan. Steps 3 and 4 cover the narrative and submission. The others cover your starting point, actions, outcomes and review.

What is the baseline? Step 1 is to understand the issues in your organisation. If you do not know your current absence patterns, exit data or how confident employees feel raising symptoms, you cannot show what has changed. And if your baseline starts at menopause rather than perimenopause, it misses several years of the people you are trying to support.
Who owns it? Step 2 is to choose your actions. Give each one a named owner with the authority and budget to make changes. If HR owns everything, there is a risk that nobody feels responsible.
What will you measure? Steps 5 and 6 cover tracking outcomes and reviewing the plan. Decide what you will measure before you commit. Reporting what you have done is useful, but the key question is whether it made a difference.

What to measure for each of the six menopause actions:

Train managers. Track attendance and whether managers put their learning into practice, through adjustments agreed or employee feedback.
Offer occupational health advice. This can come through your occupational health service or specialist benefits provider. Track referrals, waiting times, how many recommendations were put in place and how many employees use the support.
Set up support groups and networks. Look beyond membership to what the network raises and what changes as a result.
Offer workplace adjustments. Track requests, decisions and decision times.
Conduct a menopause risk assessment. Track which sites and roles were assessed, what was found and what changed.

Review policies and procedures. Track which procedures changed and whether employees know about them.

Why publishing an action plan matters

Gender pay gap reporting has been enforced almost entirely through warning notices rather than penalties, and nobody has yet confirmed who will police action plans or how.

The process gives employers an opportunity to examine workforce data, involve employee networks and unions, and give a senior leader responsibility for the plan.

An effective plan should lead to changes employees can experience: managers who know what they can agree, ways to raise symptoms beyond the line manager when needed, adjustments that are reviewed as symptoms change, and specialist care that is arranged rather than simply signposted.

The workforce case for better support

CIPD’s Menopause in the workplace: Employee experiences in (2023) found that around one in six respondents had considered leaving work because of a lack of support, while more than a quarter said menopause had negatively affected their career progression.

A well-evidenced action plan can help employers track these outcomes in their own workforce data, including whether experienced colleagues stay, maintain their hours and continue to progress.

The plan you publish in spring 2027 will be read again in spring 2028. Choose actions you will be glad to be measured against.

Get started today

Carrot has published a free guide to menopause action plans for UK employers. It works through all six menopause actions, sets out what evidence a reviewer would expect to see for each, and includes a template you can complete with your team before spring 2027.

Download the guide here.