Supporting a colleague or employee

In brief

• What this helps with. Supporting a colleague or employee through menopause symptoms without asking her to disclose anything.
• One thing to do. Make it visibly normal for anyone to step out, cool down or start later, so she never has to ask.
• One thing to ask. "Is there anything that would make this week easier?"

She lost her thread halfway through the presentation, flushed, and stopped. The room waited two seconds too long, and then someone else picked it up. She was quiet for the rest of the meeting, and she has no intention of telling anyone why.

The scale of it

The transition lands in the years when many women are at the peak of their careers. In a 2023 survey of 4,440 employed women published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, menopause symptoms were linked to adverse work outcomes, including missed work, and the authors estimated the cost of lost work time in the United States at about 1.8 billion dollars a year. Hot flashes and night sweats affect up to four in five women during the transition, 38 percent of midlife women in one SWAN survey reported difficulty sleeping, and women in late perimenopause show a measurable dip in verbal memory and processing speed that recovers after menopause. None of it stops at the door, and almost none of it is visible from the outside. This often affects women at the top of their career in leadership roles or up for promotions. So many women leave the full time workforce at this time, and remember you're not just losing a female employee you're losing her legacy knowledge and ability to mentor.

What it looks like at work

It looks like a sharp colleague who has started to lose words in meetings and now says less. A hot flash in the middle of a presentation, with the flush and the pause. Mornings after a night of broken sleep, when the first two hours run on autopilot. More sick days, taken vaguely.

Not every workplace has a meeting room to step out of. A nurse on a twelve-hour shift cannot leave the ward when a flash arrives. A teacher cannot step out of a classroom of thirty children. A retail or warehouse worker may be on her feet in a hot building, in a uniform, with breaks set by a schedule. The small freedoms an office takes for granted, water within reach, a window, a quiet minute, are the whole problem there.

From the outside, all of this is easy to misread. Losing words looks like being unprepared. Going quiet looks like disengagement. A later start looks like a slipping standard. Further along, in any job, a woman may cut her hours or leave without ever saying that symptoms were the reason.

Why she may not tell you

Many women decide the risk is not worth it. Menopause is still a punchline in many workplaces, and a woman who names it may fear being seen as past it or unreliable. It is definitely not a laughing matter. She may already have been brushed off by a clinician. In one survey of residents in family medicine, internal medicine and obstetrics and gynecology, only about a fifth reported any formal menopause training, and a woman whose doctor did not take it seriously has little reason to expect more from her manager. So build the support so that she does not have to ask.

You do not need to know anything about her health

Nothing in this article requires access to her MenoScore, her health records, her diagnosis or a MenoHealth supporter relationship. Anything she has chosen to share with you in the app is a private arrangement, and it gives you no standing to raise it at work. Ask whether she wants you to mention what she shares or wait for her to bring it up, follow her preference, and accept that it can change. The article on respecting what she chooses to share covers how to agree that. Good workplace support assumes you know nothing, and it works anyway.

Ordinary considerate behavior, if you manage her

Most of what helps is ordinary good management, applied without making her ask, and none of it needs a form.

• Temperature and ventilation. A desk away from the heat, a fan that appears without a request, a meeting room that is not stifling. On a ward or a shop floor, a cool spot she can reach on a break.
• Cover for a short break. Anyone can step out of a meeting for five minutes. In a classroom or on a ward, that means a colleague who can take the room for ten minutes on a signal, arranged in advance for anyone who needs it.
• Flexible starts, where the job allows. A later start after a bad night can save her the day. Where shifts are fixed, swaps that do not need a reason are the equivalent.
• Camera-off latitude. On video calls, let people choose. A hot flash on camera is a small public event.
• Never require disclosure. If she asks for a fan, a swap or a later start, treat it like any other reasonable request. She does not owe you a reason.
• Do not single her out. Cooling the room for everyone is support. Announcing that you have cooled it for her is exposure.

Formal adjustments are a different conversation

Considerate behavior needs no paperwork. A formal accommodation does, and the two should not be blurred. Employment protections in this area in the United States are evolving and vary by state and by employer, and this article is not legal advice. If she raises menopause as a health matter, or asks for a change to her hours, duties or equipment, involve your HR team and follow your organization's process rather than improvising an arrangement on your own. A private, informal deal that later has to be explained does her no favors.

If you work beside her

You have less authority and more opportunity. Cover for her without comment when she loses a thread in a meeting. Take the class or the bay for ten minutes when she gives you the look. No jokes, and no laughing at the jokes other people make. If she has told you something, it stays with you, including from your partner. And have the private word once, on her terms, such as "If you ever want me to jump in when you lose your place, tell me the signal and I'll do it." Then leave it with her. If she never takes you up on it, the offer still stands.

What not to say at work

"Is it hot in here, or is it just you?" turns a symptom into a joke at her expense. "Are you okay? You look flushed," said in front of the room, makes her explain herself to an audience. "Maybe you should take some time off" can sound like a suggestion to step back from the job she is working to keep. If you want to say something, say it privately, and make it "Anything I can do?"

Where to start this week

• Check the temperature where your team actually works.
• Make leaving for five minutes visibly normal, and arrange the cover that makes it possible.
• Learn your organization's flexible-work and health-accommodation policies before anyone asks.
• Retire the jokes, yours and the ones you have been letting pass.
• If she has confided in you, keep it, and ask once what would make the week easier.

Related reading

• Brain fog and changing moods, without blame or dismissal
• Hot flashes and night sweats, from the outside
• Respecting what she chooses to share

Sources

• Faubion SS, Enders F, Hedges MS, et al. Impact of menopause symptoms on women in the workplace. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2023;98(6):833-845. Cross-sectional survey, n=4,440.
• Thurston RC, Joffe H. Vasomotor symptoms and menopause: findings from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation. Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics of North America. 2011;38(3):489-501.
• Kravitz HM, Ganz PA, Bromberger J, et al. Sleep difficulty in women at midlife: a community survey of sleep and the menopausal transition. Menopause. 2003;10(1):19-28.
• Greendale GA, Huang MH, Wight RG, et al. Effects of the menopause transition and hormone use on cognitive performance in midlife women. Neurology. 2009;72(21):1850-1857.
• Kling JM, MacLaughlin KL, Schnatz PF, et al. Menopause management knowledge in postgraduate family medicine, internal medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology residents: a cross-sectional survey. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2019;94(2):242-253.

Disclaimer

This article is for education and support. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for care from a qualified healthcare provider.