Menopause is one of today's hottest topics. Across the nation, HR and ERG leaders are ready to turn this cultural moment into lasting action.
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By Sarah Rauzin, MPH, CPH, Director of Health Strategy and Insights
In the U.S., 50 million workers are women ages 35+ — the stage when menopause symptoms begin. However, only one in five companies offer menopause-specific benefits.That means there are millions of women navigating the menopause transition in the workplace, often without the support they need.
To make progress on this problem, the Health Action Alliance convened 32 leaders representing 27 organizations for our inaugural Menopause Action Accelerator and our national employee resource group (ERG) leader meeting, both presented by AARP.
Participants crowdsourced solutions to shared challenges, with the aim of improving menopause support at work. Attendees set goals that were flexible to their organizations' needs and readiness for change, and manageable to accomplish over a 30-day period.
"Those small steps can ultimately lead to larger, impactful changes in the workplace around menopause," said Shani Hosten, Vice President of Inclusive Impact at AARP.
Both sessions were off-the-record, but two leaders who participated in the Action Accelerator agreed to share their experiences.
For many HR leaders, the biggest barrier to getting started with a menopause strategy is capacity. Year after year, they are given more to do, and with fewer resources. Michelle Shirley, Choice Hotels' Senior Director of Health, Well-being, and Belonging, said that leaning into her company's new AI tools made it possible to prioritize menopause.
"I gave it our benefits guide and asked it to give me everything we offer that's relevant to menopause and perimenopause," Shirley said. "It gave me a wealth of information, which was a really great starting point."
That led to conversations with her company's ERGs and inviting them to contribute to a final "situation guide" for menopause.
"I think one of the most important things is bringing them in from the beginning," she said. "Before I attended HAA's workshop, I let my ERG know. I didn't want to just give them a finished product. I wanted to give them time and get them excited about it."
Shirley pulled the information she gathered from AI tools, her ERG leads, and her own additional research to build a comprehensive guide for her employees. "It allows us, in one concise digital booklet, to go in and see every single benefit we offer — whether it's physical, mental, or financial health — related to menopause."
After Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson signed an executive order in June directing state agencies to adopt supportive menopause policies, Betsy Vandrush-Borgacz, Director of Workplace Culture and Development Office at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, knew she had to learn more about what she could do. She also saw an opportunity to educate others along the way, leading her to plan a statewide lunch-and-learn panel, where she intentionally curated a group of speakers who represent a range of experiences people go through during the menopause transition.
One of her biggest "aha" moments was discovering that menopause doesn't always happen "naturally." Menopause (a diagnosis made 12 months after a person's final menstrual period) can be triggered by a range of events beyond aging. "A lot of people are like, 'Well, this is a natural progression,' but it's actually not a natural progression for everybody," Vandrush-Borgacz said. "Somebody that has surgery might go through menopause. Saying it's just a natural progression might discount that person's experience."
People's responses to medications and treatment, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT), can also vary widely.
"On my panel of eight people, you have eight very different experiences with HRT," Vandrush-Borgacz said. "There's a lot of opportunity to be more compassionate with each other, and less, 'This is what you have to do to fix this thing that's going on with you.'"
You can watch a recording of the panel here.
In addition to helping each leader define and accomplish their own individual goal, the Action Accelerator drew from collective wisdom and experience of the group to develop a set of shared strategies that employers can take to their own organizations:
The most commonly requested support from workers navigating menopause is flexibility — a benefit that adds value far beyond menopause. "Everybody in their life has a moment where their bodies don't work the same way they used to, no matter what your gender is, no matter what your profession is," Vandrush-Borgacz said.
Welcoming men into these conversations extends the influence of the information. Choice Hotels invited an executive from the health platform Carrot to "share clinical information about a lot of things [on women’s health], and we had such a good reception," Shirley said. "The males who attended were blown away by what they learned, and they were so excited that we offered it."
Leaders at large organizations expressed a common challenge: getting workers across their teams to actually use their benefits. To tackle this, cohort members discussed the power of peer storytelling. "It's one thing for the benefits person to say something, but it's totally different if associates are hearing excitement and gaining information from their actual peers and colleagues that they work with every day," Shirley said.
Many leaders realized their organizations likely already have a lot of applicable benefits and programs in place; they just needed to assess their offerings. One of the easiest starting points is to conduct an internal audit of existing benefits, programs, and services, and review current partnerships with local and national organizations. Several leaders found more than they expected, giving them a strong foundation for developing employee guides or navigation portals as a next step.
The Health Action Alliance's free tip sheet "Naming and Shaping Your Menopause Strategy" is designed to help benefits leaders take stock of their existing benefits and compile that information into an easy, plug-and-play employee communication.
As a complement to the action accelerator, HAA and AARP convened a group of ERG leaders from companies representing industries from utilities and construction to computer software, biomedical technologies, law, and more.
“ERGs are more than employee networks; they’re strategic partners who can give senior leaders a firsthand view of what employees need, what barriers they’re facing, and what will actually resonate,” Hosten said. “It’s important to hear from employees across the organization, not just rely on a top-down perspective. When you empower ERG leaders, you can turn benefits from an investment on paper into resources employees genuinely use.”
ERG leaders discussed ways to close the gap between what employees actually need and what HR knows to offer; 54% of working women over 35 say employers need to do more to support workers going through menopause, but only 2% have asked HR for menopause benefits.
They shared ideas to help secure buy-in for a program, and, once the program is in place, encourage employees to use it:
One ERG leader recalled pitching a high-level need to her company’s leadership, who weren't initially receptive. She didn’t give up. Instead, she built a concrete plan for the program, spelling out clear objectives for how it would add value to the business and to their community of workers. “Once I presented it to them that way, they were like, 'You have my vote a million percent,'” she said.
The best way to promote worker engagement is to make a program not feel like work. ERG leaders described a variety of program formats that saw successful engagement in the past that they could adapt for menopause, including creating small, focused support groups, like Lean In Circles, or hosting trivia games on platforms like Kahoot. “I think it gathered a lot of traction just because it was fun," one leader said about their trivia program. "It was a break from your day job."
If your goal is to reach a wider audience, consider inviting senior leadership to be an active part of the program, or to communicate their support for the event. “When upper management sends out an email, people are more likely to attend,” one leader said.
Smaller events hold a valuable role in creating safe spaces for people to more authentically share challenges they are facing and seek support. If the goal of an event is to promote vulnerability and story-sharing, redefine your metrics for success from reach to outcomes. Did people in the room feel safe expressing their experiences and needs? Were genuine connections made to supportive resources across the organization?
One of the major challenges HR leaders face in offering menopause benefits is demonstrating need across their organization. ERGs can offer a valuable feedback loop for employees to share their desired benefits or accommodations with benefits leaders. Due to stigma around menopause, workers may worry they’ll be seen as unable to deliver on the work expected of them, so ERG leaders discussed ideas for collecting anonymous themes during meetings, or administering anonymous surveys to the broader organization in collaboration with their HR partners.
Participants in both the Menopause Action Accelerator and the ERG leader meeting worked on a wide variety of challenges and goals, and many found value in sharing ideas across company lines. But all shared the same vision: organizations strengthened by supporting workers through their menopause journeys.
"I feel like the best thing I can do as somebody who has a voice in lots of spaces is to help other folks," Vandrush-Borgacz said. "The more we collaborate and connect with each other, the easier it is for us to have strength in what we're trying to put out there."
Want to join a future action accelerator on issues important to you and your organization? HR, benefits, workforce health, and culture leaders are invited to join our waitlist here.
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