We can and must do more to support women during menopause

I have been a group sales director for a long time and I am as comfortable in this role as I am being a mum and a wife. But last year I found my tipping point, which seemed to creep up on me from almost nowhere.

I was driving home from a regional meeting in the north of England. The meeting had been long, and mostly positive, but I had this really strange sensation of feeling overwhelmed and my heart began racing. It was an isolated incident, but that same feeling came back several days later. And then it became an almost daily event.

Across several weeks, those small things that I would take in my stride started to feel huge and insurmountable. I was due a holiday and I put those feelings down to tiredness and assumed, after a break from work, that I would bounce back to being me.

Things that once seemed just a normal part of my job felt completely overwhelming and terrifying

That didn’t happen. Very quickly brain-fog and anxiety became a feature of my day and I started to question my capability to do my job. It took such a hold that I began to dread certain aspects of my role such as taking centre-stage at large events and chairing meetings – things that once seemed just a normal part of my job felt completely overwhelming and terrifying.

The turning point for me was a simple thing by comparison – it was forgetting my PC password! A password that I had had forever (yes, I know you’re meant to change them). It simply left my brain, not for a few minutes or long enough to make a coffee, but forever. It was an entire IT reset.

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That little action which we take for granted, hardwired into our daily work life, just escaped me. Soon to follow were colleagues’ names and everyday words which would take so much longer to recall.

I was already chatting to my GP about HRT to help with other symptoms and,  after sorting out the right dose and regime, some of the symptoms of my menopause started to improve. I am not going to lie – I am not the Justine Elliott I was back in 2020, but I’m incredibly grateful to be able to speak openly about how I feel at work and my daily struggle with the big M.

While every woman’s experience of the menopause is different, mine is by no means unusual and, as I speak to more and more women, common themes are that of being unable to cope, of passing up promotion opportunities or even leaving work as we struggle with symptoms of the menopause.

In an industry that already has a huge gender imbalance, construction cannot afford to lose any more female talent and skills

In fact, research I have seen from BUPA estimates that nearly 1 million women leave the labour market due to issues such as brain fog, lack of concentration or low mood affecting their confidence and ability to work.

It goes without saying that women should not be giving up the careers they have worked so hard to forge due to the menopause. In an industry that already has a huge gender imbalance, construction cannot afford to lose any more female talent and skills.

Across the board, we see businesses putting a great deal of effort into recruiting women and we need to ensure that these skills are not lost further down the path. A complete cultural change in the industry is required to ensure that both women and men are better supported – and I am proud to be championing this within Lovell.

It is just the beginning, but recently we have implemented a varied framework of tools to support our colleagues with menopause, encouraging conversation around this once unmentioned subject and educating individuals on the impact it can have. Through regular webinar programmes and workshops we are normalising the subject, reassuring individuals that we understand the emotions they face and are here to support them.

Men play an important role in the culture change we need to instil in the UK and must not be forgotten in this journey

And it isn’t just female colleagues that we are supporting. One in four of the staff who attended our recent webinar on the menopause were men, keen to understand how they can better support female colleagues, their wives, partners and other family members.

Men play an important role in the culture change we need to instil in the UK and must not be forgotten in this journey. As a senior leader in this business it is obvious to me that society needs to ensure that men and women know how to chat about menopause, with empathy, understanding and an open mind if real change is to take place.

Menopause conversations should be as normal as a walk in the park. We owe it to ourselves, our colleagues and our families to make this happen.

Justine Elliott is national sales director at Lovell