Your Menopause Policy Isn’t Managing Your People. Your Managers Are.
It’s 4pm on a Tuesday. What Then?
Why manager capability matters when workplace menopause moves from policy into real life.
It’s 4pm on a Tuesday. Or 12.03pm on a Wednesday.
Your manager has a deadline, three unanswered emails and another meeting in 30 minutes.
And an employee says:
“Can I have a quick word? I’m really struggling at the moment.”
What happens then?
Not what your menopause policy says should happen, or what was covered in that informative awareness session six months ago.
Not what your values statement says about creating an inclusive workplace and a great culture.
Because what happens next is where this becomes real.
Awareness Gets Us There
In my last article, I wrote about menopause awareness and why we need to move beyond simply giving people more information.
Awareness is very important. It builds understanding, removes some of the fear around the subject and helps people feel more confident to start a conversation.
But eventually somebody WILL have that conversation.
And that's when the organisation needs something more.
Manager capability.
Because “have a supportive conversation” sounds wonderfully simple until you're the manager having one.
There isn't a script.
The employee may not even use the word menopause. They’re likely to not even use that word.
They may tell you they aren't sleeping. They're struggling to concentrate. They're anxious about their performance. They can't cope with the commute at the moment. They've lost confidence. Something that they've done brilliantly for years suddenly feels much harder.
Or perhaps they simply say:
“I don't know what's wrong with me.”
And now the manager has to respond.
The Policy Can't Do This
A good policy is valuable.
It creates a framework. It can explain what support is available, provides consistency and give managers and employees somewhere to start.
But the policy isn't sitting opposite the employee at 4pm on Tuesday.
The manager is.
And that manager is trying very hard to do the right thing.
They might also be terrified of saying the wrong thing.
They could immediately send the employee to HR, the women’s network, or suggest the EAP.
Maybe they start talking about somebody else they know who went through menopause.
Then make an assumption about what the employee needs and agree something on the spot that isn't practical.
Often they say very little because they're frightened of making things worse, or even worse they say nothing at all.
Or they listen, ask a few sensible questions, understand what's really affecting the person in front of them and agree what happens next.
Same organisation.
Same policy.
Very different employee experience.
“Have a Conversation” Isn’t an Instruction Manual
This is one of the things I find particularly interesting about manager guidance.
We tell managers to “have a conversation.”
Fine.
How?
What should they ask? Or shouldn’t ask?
What if the employee becomes upset? And what do they do if she does?
It’s likely they won’t know the answer!
What if the employee doesn't want to talk about menopause at all?
What if performance has already started to change?
Any adjustments affects the rest of the team?
What if something is agreed and it doesn't work?
What needs to be documented?
When should HR or Occupational Health become involved?
And when they do become involved, does the manager remain connected to the situation or simply hand the employee over?
These aren't questions about whether somebody can name 300 overlapping symptoms of menopause.
They're questions about managing people well.
People Leave Managers. But It’s More Complicated Than That.
We've probably all heard the phrase:
“People don't leave organisations. They leave managers.”
There's evidence behind the sentiment. Gallup has reported that one in two employees had left a job at some point in their career to get away from a manager and improve their overall life. Its research has also found managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. Gallup.com
Of course, people leave jobs for all sorts of reasons.
Pay. Progression. Work-life balance. A better opportunity. Organisational change. Senior leadership.
So I don't think we should reduce every resignation to somebody's relationship with their manager.
But managers have an extraordinary amount of influence over how it feels to work.
And that's particularly important when somebody is going through something difficult, uncertain or very personal.
Sometimes It’s One Small Comment
This is where those apparently ordinary workplace moments can matter far more than we realise.
In Rooney v Leicester City Council, an Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment records the claimant's account of discussing menopausal hot flushes during supervision with her team manager.
According to her claim, when she mentioned suffering from hot flushes in the office, “he said he also gets hot in the office.” GOV.UK
It's such a small sentence.
And that's precisely why it interests me.
I'm not suggesting that one clumsy comment automatically amounts to discrimination, or that managers should become frightened of opening their mouths. The Rooney litigation was considerably more complex than one remark.
But think about the moment from the employee's perspective.
She has said something personal about what she is experiencing.
What does the response communicate?
I hear you?
Tell me more?
How is this affecting you at work?
Or perhaps:
It's hot. We all get hot.
Manager capability isn't about teaching people a list of approved sentences.
It's about helping them understand the impact their response can have.
Often the Consequences Aren’t Immediate
This is another reason I'm wary of looking only for obvious menopause cases.
Imagine an employee who has always performed well, and begins struggling.
She raises it with her manager and the conversation doesn't go well.
Nothing dramatic happens, neither a grievance or formal complaint is raised.
No tribunal claim.
She simply becomes a little less willing to talk. Her confidence drops and she stops speaking up.
Perhaps her manager starts viewing her differently because she now seems to be “struggling.”
What starts as a casual conversation about performance can quickly turn into performance management.
An opportunity comes up and she doesn't apply.
So, she leaves.
And the exit data says:
Reason for leaving: Career opportunity.
Where does menopause appear in that data?
Absolutely nowhere!
Where does the manager interaction appear?
Probably nowhere either.
Yet both have been part of the story.
Government guidance published in 2026 acknowledges this wider retention issue: menopause symptoms can affect productivity and whether people stay in their jobs, while many employees conceal the real reason for menopause-related absence, often because they prefer to keep it private from their manager. GOV.UK
That makes manager behaviour paramount.
You can't respond well to what people don't feel safe enough to tell you.
The Manager Is Where Organisational Intention Meets Reality
An organisation can genuinely care about menopause.
It can have excellent policies, Occupational Health, an EAP, flexible working, employee networks, adjustments and awareness sessions.
None of that is wasted.
But eventually those organisational intentions have to work in an actual situation involving an actual person.
And very often, a manager is standing there.
That's why I don't believe manager capability should be about turning managers into menopause experts.
Quite the opposite.
One of the most useful things a manager can bring to that conversation is curiosity.
Not curiosity about somebody's medical history or symptoms. Curiosity about what is happening for this person at work.
What's making things difficult? When does it tend to happen? What would help? What have we not thought about?
Curiosity gets us away from assumption and closer to understanding.
Managers don't need to diagnose or fix everything.
And they definitely don't need to become amateur endocrinologists.
They need the confidence and practical capability to:
listen without immediately jumping to a solution; ask rather than assume; understand the impact on the person's work; know what support and processes are available; make sensible and consistent decisions; recognise when specialist input is needed; and come back afterwards to ask whether what was agreed is actually working.
Government guidance now specifically recommends training managers to give them the knowledge and skills to support employees experiencing menopause, including understanding organisational support and guidance and learning to talk and listen sensitively. GOV.UK
For me, that's where awareness starts turning into everyday behaviour.
And Consistency Matters
Here's another question I think organisations should ask.
Imagine two employees in the same organisation.
They're experiencing similar difficulties.
They approach two different managers.
Would they receive the same quality of response?
Not necessarily exactly the same solution, because people, jobs and circumstances are different.
But the same quality of listening and willingness to understand?
The same knowledge of what the organisation can offer?
Because if somebody's experience depends largely on whether they happen to have a manager who is naturally empathetic, confident and knowledgeable, that's a fairly fragile organisational strategy.
Good practice needs to survive contact with the line manager.
The 4pm on a Tuesday Test
Forget the beautifully written policy for a moment.
The awareness presentation.
The Women’s Health Universal Design Project.
And what’s sitting on the intranet.
Imagine that next Tuesday at 4pm an employee approaches any one of your managers and says:
“Can I have a quick word? I'm really struggling.”
How confident are you about happens after that?
Would the manager listen and know where their responsibility begins and ends?
Would they ask rather than assume?
Would they know what support exists and when to involve somebody else?
And importantly:
Would you be equally confident whichever manager the employee happened to approach?
Because that's where your approach to menopause at work stops being something you've written down and becomes something an employee really experiences.
That's the thinking behind my Manager Capability work.