Employers must support female employees suffering from the debilitating effects of the menopause or face potential legal action, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Measures could include providing rest areas, offering flexible working conditions and relaxing rules around uniforms. The menopause marks the end of a woman’s menstrual cycle and can be accompanied by hot flushes, brain fog and poor sleep.
Disability discrimination
“An employer understanding their legal duties is the foundation of equality in the workplace,” Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chairwoman of the EHRC, said. “But it is clear that many may not fully understand their responsibility to protect their staff going through the menopause. Our new guidance sets out these legal obligations for employers and provides advice on how they can best support their staff.”
Under the Equality Act 2010, workers are protected from discrimination, harassment and victimisation on the basis of protected characteristics including disability, age and sex. The EHRC has argued that when the systems of the condition amount to a disability employers must ensure that they do not either directly or indirectly discriminate against the affected employee.
How bad is it?
The menopause affects individual women differently. For example, a study by the equality group Fawcett found that 1 in 10 women reported leaving a job because of the severity of their symptoms. And 8 out of 10 women said that their employers had failed to share information, train staff or put in place menopause absence policies.
Since the menopause may now be considered a disability for some women, employers must now ensure they make the reasonable adjustments suggested by EHRC – or face potential legal challenges on the basis of discrimination in the workplace.
Three steps
The law firm Davidson Morris suggested that organisations could take three steps to comply with the change of law: develop a comprehensive menopause policy with specific measures for support and training; foster open communication on the subject; and take a proactive stance to genuinely help affected women.
