Part 2 of a 3 part series: “The Menopause Series”
Episode 2: Menopause + Work — Opal’s Nutrition Director and Co-Founder, Julie Church, RDN speaks with Janie Stuart, PhD, about the intersection of menopause and workplace experiences. Drawing from her research in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Janie describes how menopause often occurs during pivotal career years and how workplace norms—like “work-first” cultures, ageism, and gender expectations—can shape how symptoms and transitions are perceived. Building on our previous conversation about the biological aspects of menopause, this episode explores the social and psychological dimensions of the transition. Julie and Janie also discuss practical ways individuals, leaders, and organizations can foster more inclusive workplaces that support employees through menopause and other major life transitions.
Connect with Janie: LinkedIn.com/in/stuartjanie
She is a consultant at Re-center Consulting
Menopause Resources: National Menopause Foundation
Connect with Opal:
Thank you to our team…
Editing by David Bazzi
Music by Aaron Davidson: https://soundcloud.com/diet75/
Sound engineering by Ayesha Ubayatilaka at Jack Straw Studios
Transcription provided by Rev.com
Julie Church (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to The Appetite, a podcast brought to you by Opal Food and Body Wisdom, an eating disorder treatment clinic in Seattle, Washington. The Appetite is a podcast about all things food, body, movement, and mental health. Thanks for being here today. I’m Julie Church. I am the host today. I am one of the co-founders of Opal and nutrition director and director of people and culture. And I am pleased to have a guest with us in the studio, Janie Stewart, who is an organizational psychologist who I have known through lots of different purposes, years, has been a family friend for many years and has recently finished a dissertation that was very intriguing to me. And I thought you as listeners would want to hear the results and be able to bring this into your knowledge about yourselves and individuals that struggle with eating disorders, because there’s definitely a parallel to all of this.
(00:59):
So Janie, tell me about yourself a little bit more and kind of what brings you into having an organizational psychology degree and why you studied what we’re talking about today as menopause.
Janie Stuart (01:11):
Yeah. So I recently completed my PhD, as you mentioned, in industrial and organizational psychology. And organizational psychology for people who don’t know. The most famous organizational psychologist is Adam Grant. He’s written several books. He has a podcast called Work First. He teaches at Wharton. And he says that organizational psychology is the study of trying to make work not suck, to put it bluntly. So really it’s looking at organizations and the people that work in them and how to improve the experience of working there in all the different ways that we can. So I was really excited to kind of dive into life in the workplace, so to speak. And for my dissertation, I was thinking about lots of different things to do. I was drawn to the idea, especially of inclusive leaders, inclusive leadership, which is the theory that if you really want to celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion in your workplace, you really need leaders that are going to allow people to bring their whole selves to work, whatever that might look like, to encourage the full participation of people in whatever workplace they might find themselves in.
(02:28):
I was really drawn to that. So inclusion and inclusive leadership.
Julie Church (02:33):
And can I just interrupt knowing that one of my first paths of knowing Janie was because she was a female pastor in a Christian organization and in the Christian culture, which women have not always had the main upfront presence, right? So you’ve been in that environment of maybe not always having an inclusive workplace, correct?
Janie Stuart (02:51):
Yeah. Yeah. And even as a minister, I think one of the reasons that we maybe feel called to ministry is the idea of bringing people in. The idea of inclusion no matter who you are, no matter where you’ve been, you are included and should be included in a Christian congregation or a Christian community. So that also drew me to this idea of inclusion and inclusive leadership as well. And then I am second career. As Julie just mentioned, I did spend about 20 years working, serving in different churches as an ordained minister and transitioned to organizational psychology for lots of different reasons and was drawn to the idea of how to, whatever workplace you’re in, finding the way that you can thrive most in whatever that is and creating systems that allow people to thrive as well. So anyways, because I’m second career, that tells you that I’m also probably mid 40s.
(04:06):
That tells you my age. So I am a woman experiencing perimenopause. And so that population of people is very intriguing to me. And the experience of perimenopause and menopause were conversations I was having just with friends and in communities. And I talked to another organizational psychologist who had just done research in their organization about how menopause and menopause symptoms and the experience of it might impact women in the workplace. So that was really exciting and intriguing to me. So that drew me to possibly studying it further doing research for my dissertation. And one of the first articles I read was called Tackling Taboo Topics: A Review of the Three Ms in Working Women’s Lives, which the three M’s are menstruation, maternity and menopause. And the article, it was in the Journal of Management. The authors are Grandy Gabriel and King. And I was so drawn to it because it just kind of pointed out how these biological realities that so many women experience end up constraining their careers in all sorts of ways.
(05:13):
And once I started down the trail of studying menopause in the workplace, I discovered how little research there is. There’s just very, very little. Most of it comes out of Western Europe, Australia, Japan, the UK especially has done quite a bit of research looking at how menopause might impact a woman’s experience at work. And so because there wasn’t a lot of research, it was a really exciting topic for a dissertation because you’re always kind of looking for how is this interesting? What can we say in the research that we do that’s not just, hey, everybody hates their bus in order to help whatever workplace is going to be transition moving forward. So yeah, that’s kind of the background and the details of how I got to studying this to begin with.
Julie Church (06:01):
So interesting. Yes. And I think I have found, of course, that menopause is being talked about a lot around me because of similar age and people going through these changes. And within the field of eating disorders, finding myself also hearing it being talked about much more. There’s a lot more individuals that are presenting at midlife seeking treatment for eating disorders. So it is also a factor that our staff and just like clinically, we need to be attentive to and be aware of these changes. So just for our listeners who might not know, I just want to do a quick definition of menopause. Janie, please correct me. This what ChatGPT gave me. So let’s see. Menopause is the natural biological stage in a woman or anyone with a uterus life when menstrual periods permanently stop, marking the end of reproductive years. And it is officially diagnosed when somebody has gone 12 consecutive months without a menstrual period that’s not accounted for through some other medical cause.
(07:03):
Would you add anything else to that definition?
Janie Stuart (07:05):
The only other thing that I think is pretty important is that it can last. Perimenopausal symptoms and menopause symptoms can last a really long time. Typically it’s like one to three years, but a lot of reports it can last up to a decade that women are dealing with the symptoms that come about as a result of this biological transition.
Julie Church (07:25):
Yeah. And that is something too when menopause being this mark of that moment, but that there’s perimenopause. So that I felt like when our color conversation, you had said something about seven to 10 years. So is that the whole span of peri including menopause and then the post time?
Janie Stuart (07:41):
Yeah. I haven’t looked too much into a lot of the medical research beyond just seeing that it can last for a long time. And it can be medically induced. Some women in their 20s are – Absolutely. Because of something like a cancer treatment will go through menopause or the need for a hysterectomy will have medically induced menopause. So it’ll happen well before the typical age of late 40s, early 50s that most women experience.
Julie Church (08:10):
Okay, great. And as you all can hear too, we’re going to probably use female pronouns and thinking about women in this a lot because of the topic here, but also just recognizing, as I said in the definition, anyone with a uterus can be going through these biological changes. I think of individuals who go through a transition, transgender, all of those areas too. So just kind of as listeners, please know that yeah, all of these things are happening for anybody that has a uterus. And in the topic of workplace, I think as we’ll get into, definitely thinking about those female identified individuals out there in the workplace and how some of that is potentially not being treated well in this menopausal transition. Okay. So we’ve done the definition.
(08:56):
I think the connection for us to be talking about menopause and eating disorders maybe is obvious, but so many individuals have a lot of physical discomfort. It feels like a season of life that individuals feel as if their body is out of control and individuals definitely one of the side effects can be weight gain. So that is where a lot of the eating disorder kind of connection comes as well. Some of those parallels, hopefully our listeners can kind of relate to and hear. So as some of you maybe have heard, we did do one other podcast with a local physician who was an eating disorder doctor who became and is now a menopause doctor. And there we talk a lot more about the medical and biological changes that happen in the menopause and the treatments that are out there. So if you haven’t caught that episode, please check that out.
(09:43):
But within this one, we’re going to be maybe addressing a little bit more of that social and psychological impact of menopause, especially specifically to work and the workplace. So Janie, what can you tell us about your research specifically? Methods, findings that would kind of get us into the material of this and the learnings that we can take away?
Janie Stuart (10:06):
Yeah. I can talk specifically about my research. I wanted to look at the relationship between the experience of menopause or the experience of the symptoms of menopause. I guess I should say when I’m talking about the experience of menopause, I’m talking about the symptoms, both psychological and somatic that women experience in the midst of that. How those symptoms can impact workplace outcomes. And the two workplace outcomes that I chose to look at were organizational commitment. How loyal are you to your workplace? And turnover intention. Are you thinking about quitting? A lot of the previous menopause research was really just trying to determine, are women leaving the workforce as a result of this experience? And some research found yes, and some researchers found no, it was kind of all over the place. But my question was just the idea of thinking about leaving. Have you considered?
(11:09):
Is what I wanted to look at. So those are the ones that I looked at. And then I wanted to know, okay, does it matter if you’re in an inclusive workplace environment or not? And I looked at three different types of inclusion that you might find in a workplace. The results showed organizational commitment. It didn’t really make a difference. Whether or not you were experiencing severe menopause or not, there was no statistically significant relationship if the workplace was inclusive, whether or not you’d have more organizational commitment. But with turnover intention, there was a statistically significant relationship. If a woman worked in an inclusive work environment and they were experiencing menopause symptoms and that inclusive work environment reduced the likelihood of their turnover intention. So it did make a difference. And I looked at three different types of inclusion. I don’t necessarily need to get into that, but that’s the basis of what I found.
Julie Church (12:18):
So that is interesting to think about that workplaces are going to be able to retain women longer and have them stay there in the job if they are being treated with kind of attention and inclusivity around some of these symptoms. What are maybe the main symptoms? I obviously mentioned weight gain earlier when I was talking about the parallel with eating disorders, but what are the other things that I think you did like they had to check, right? Your participants
Janie Stuart (12:43):
Had to
Julie Church (12:43):
Check boxes or something about what they were experiencing. So what are some of those things that they were being assessed for and are menopause symptoms?
Janie Stuart (12:52):
Yeah. So I used the survey that I used is called the Menopause Rating Scale. And it’s a survey that’s commonly used in doctor’s offices. Just as you enter, you’ll take the survey to kind of rate where your symptoms are on a particular scale as you’re dealing with menopause. So it’s called the MRS scale. And it has, I think, 12 symptoms listed. I didn’t include all of them because some of them didn’t relate to the workplace like reduced libido. But the others that I listed that were included were irritability, mental exhaustion, depressive mood, sleep problems, anxiety, physical exhaustion, joint muscular discomfort, hot flashes, heart discomfort, bladder problems. Heart discomfort’s a common experience for women experiencing menopause. They’ll go to the emergency room thinking they’re having a heart attack and it’s actually one of the menopause symptoms that they are having. So those were the symptoms listed on the MRS scale that women are dealing with.
(13:52):
So some of them are psychological obviously, and some of them are biological.
Julie Church (13:56):
Okay. And the reality is that this change is happening right at when probably a lot of women are at the peak of their career, correct? So what other. Yeah. Kind of speak to that a little bit because I can imagine that that’s kind of the whole concern around this is that, wow, now the body is doing all of these things that could be interrupting somebody in the midst of some high pressure moment and kind of how are they going to be received or are they going to be able to succeed in that moment, right?
Janie Stuart (14:24):
Yeah. A lot of the work in social sciences, so sociology and psychology around menopause kind of coincides with ageism and genderism. So women in the workplace often face sexism, genderism, as has been a concern for years and years. Totally. Continues to be. Yes. And also ageism is a reality. So a lot of older women face what is called kind of double jeopardy bias.
(14:54):
You have these intersecting realities of age and gender discrimination that are in effect. And then on top of that, they have this biological reality or mental health struggle of menopause. And this happens in an age of life where a lot of women when in their careers they have reached the possibility of promotion and higher pay. And also they may be in their personal lives are impacted with a lot of other life transitions in that perhaps they’re becoming empty nesters or perhaps they’re dealing with aging parents. So there are all of these realities that are at play that are impacting women, not just menopause that happen to be kind of parallel realities that they might be dealing with in the workplace. That makes something like accepting a promotion or more responsibility or a senior leadership position or the things that work that they might aspire to, they may find themselves having a more difficult time living into or giving their whole selves to their career because of these realities that they’re facing.
Julie Church (16:01):
Totally. And what are some of the, I guess, gender norms or kind of what are some of the things that then impact them in that way? Obviously there’s some people that aren’t going to be having menopausal symptoms, but what other beyond that I guess are they experiencing that then also compound all of this?
Janie Stuart (16:19):
You mean like within the workplace, what they might be facing?
Julie Church (16:23):
Yeah. I think some of your research was talking about some of the masculine defaults that then kind of push and put the pressure on to be something maybe that
Janie Stuart (16:32):
Isn’t
Julie Church (16:33):
What they naturally are or don’t match with menopause and the shifts that happening and all these other responsibilities they have. So yeah.
Janie Stuart (16:41):
Yeah. I was really interested in the midst of my research because the population I was going to be studying was women. Was with a gendered organization theory. And this is a theory from 1990 by ACRA that just is, it argues that organizations are not neutral entities, but are deeply shaped by societal gender norms, roles, expectations. And organizations are often dominated by these taken for granted masculinist discourses, right? These masculine defaults. So it’s not explicit discrimination. There are laws that prevent discrimination based on gender or gendered expectations. But the norms that an organization may be organized around are often lean into masculine defaults. So assertiveness, no displays of emotion, competitiveness, beliefs in meritocracy. Anything that I think we probably have some ideas of what the societal expectations are for what defines masculine. So a lot of organizations, what they anticipate as neutral is actually masculine in the way that the expectations that are presented and the expectations about how you perform is the wrong word, how you present
(18:08):
Are masculine. And so women, even if they are drawn to or lean toward masculine defaults, may find themselves being othered in a organizational space that has masculine defaults because they don’t kind of fit the expectations or fit the norms and can make it difficult for them to thrive and bring their whole selves to work.This whole reality of some women feel like their bodies are rebelling against themselves or they don’t recognize their bodies in the ways that they have before because they are experiencing this health transition. And so trying to fit in general can be difficult not to mention on top of that, that a lot of organizations are gendered in a way that isn’t explicit, but is implicit and makes it difficult for women to be who they are naturally.
Julie Church (19:03):
Yeah. I think that the moodiness piece or irritability I think has always been something that maybe people would. Well, you said the three M’s earlier, but menstruation, I think that that’s something that people would be given. Oh, they just have their period. If you think about puberty or teenagers or I don’t know, just that that’s always been something that society can kind of easily throw back at those that menstruate. So yeah, I just wonder about that piece is especially difficult if somebody in this stage in their career, if a woman has never really experienced depression or anxiety, and then here they are experiencing these things for the first time. And it would feel very out of body and it’s a new experience. And then to feel very like, “Whoa, wait, this is not who I am. Why did I just say that in that meeting?
(19:52):
Or why am I feeling so extremely anxious when I’m going to do this presentation or something?” And then if there isn’t knowledge about menopause and the treatments out there or knowing that this could be a thing that could be tended to, how then are they talking about these symptoms? How are they getting the care they need? And then how are they talking to their bosses and managers and team members about what is actually going on for them and therefore how they’re going to be treated there at the workplace, right?
Janie Stuart (20:20):
Yeah. And I think the goal is an inclusive workplace, not just for women experiencing menopause, but so that whoever you are, you don’t have to feel the pressure to disclose. You can just be who you are. If you want to disclose and you want to share, this is what I’m going through, you want women to not feel the stigma or the shame that can often be attached to being a woman of a certain age who’s experiencing this biological and psychological transition. But if you have an inclusive workplace, it shouldn’t matter because everybody will be accepted regardless of whatever they might be going through. Does that make sense?
Julie Church (20:57):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. There would be some policies or just natural cultural norms, I guess, within organization that then would allow for people to have those mental health days or be able to have some variability in maybe how they show
Janie Stuart (21:16):
Up, which is nice. Yeah. And I do think there’s pressure. One interesting thing I found in my research is I just kind of correlated one question that was an item on the survey that was basically my menopause symptoms have impacted my work experience. I correlated that with all of the symptoms individually to see which ones rose to the top is the highest correlation with that statement. And actually the highest was all the symptoms together, which I think demonstrates the cumulative effect of the symptoms. If you are not feeling well in your body, that can obviously impact your mood and it can make you more depressed and it can make you more irritable, fatigued. All of those things compounded on each other can be really, really difficult. So I guess I should have said that earlier that one of the most difficult parts of menopause is that it’s accumulation of symptoms all at the same time that really kind of build on each other.
(22:16):
But sorry, the point I was making is that the three highest correlations beyond the cumulative impact is irritability, mental exhaustion, and depressive mood. So those were the three symptoms that women identified as being the most impactful on their work experience. So it just kind of speaks to what you were already saying that coming in feeling like you’re maybe outside yourself or who you don’t want to be and how that can really impact how you’re experiencing yourself at work and how you fear or maybe the meta perception you have of how others are perceiving you.
Julie Church (22:53):
Yeah. I was just thinking too that obviously those are also often comorbid with individuals who struggle with eating disorders is that many people just struggle with depression and anxiety. So then to think, yeah, those individuals younger or older also would value having an inclusive workplace that then are going to be able to allow for them to be in their own recovery and struggling with their own mental health in the ways that they may, but also bringing their gifts and their talents to the organization they work for. So yeah, this can kind of cross outside of the menopause conversation, right? Just recognizing that if an organization, as you’re saying, is inclusive, it’s going to capture mental health.
(23:36):
So that’s awesome. Okay. So one of the things, and I can’t totally remember where it was in any of this, but it stood out to me that there was something around vulnerability in. I don’t know if there was one of the non-masculine defaults or where it was all in that, but I know that on this podcast we talk about that. It seems like it’s something that we definitely emphasize in our treatment and our work culture at Opal is just being able to be open and bring your whole self in that way and that vulnerability. So can you remind me where I saw that in our notes or in your dissertation and if there’s anything about that that’s important to bring to our listeners?
Janie Stuart (24:19):
Well, I do think that we talked about it a little bit or sorry, I talked about it a little bit in my dissertation in just that idea of older women facing discrimination at work because of feeling invisible in the workplace, overlooked and marginalized and the classic irritable or difficult kind of stereotype that can put that up on women. And so I guess the other, sorry, the one I left out was hyper exposed.
Julie Church (24:51):
Okay.
Janie Stuart (24:52):
What
Julie Church (24:52):
Do you mean by that?
Janie Stuart (24:53):
So I think the vulnerability piece was just the hyper exposure of feeling like I’m an older woman and I can’t hide it. And I know what happens when you’re an older woman, you become invisible, you become stereotyped as difficult. And so feeling vulnerable and that there’s shame and stigma attached to it and there’s shame and stigma attached to menopause and experiencing menopause symptoms. So I think just kind of beyond the workplace. Society in general, older women can feel invisible and simultaneously hyperexposed. So it’s kind of this dichotomy of like, oh, well, which is it? And it’s kind of both at the same time.
Julie Church (25:31):
Okay. Okay. Yeah. So the example of that would be the fact that they’re maybe being passed over by a younger colleague for something. That’s sort of the invisibility part of it. But then the vulnerability piece of maybe they’re presenting some of their mental health or irritability or maybe being a little inconsistent or tired on the job or something like that. And that’s the vulnerability that then they’re having to just inadvertently experience in the workplace.
Janie Stuart (26:01):
Yeah. And even just looking different or looking in the mirror and saying, “Who is this person looking back at me? I don’t recognize them.” And so I think that can add to feeling hyperexposed and it’s like I can’t hide my wrinkles. They’re there.
Julie Church (26:15):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so true. So true. The word vulnerability is interesting. Obviously the organizational psychology conversation is not some organizational psychologist I don’t think has ever been on the appetite. We’ve had many people with more clinical psychology backgrounds and degrees. So it’s interesting to talk about this within the workplace. And when I think about radically open dialectical behavioral therapy, RODBT, which we have many episodes on the podcast about, I am curious, since I know that you’re also familiar with RODBT, what, if anything, do you see as a link here or something for all those listeners that know about and have been really impacted by RODBT and their healing from their eating disorder? What would they bring in, if anything, to their seasonal, their transition in menopause beyond just their eating disorder recovery?
Janie Stuart (27:11):
What I kept thinking about in my own life and even just when I was doing the research on menopause is that it is called the change. So the quote unquote change and just thinking about the idea of how with fixed mind and fatalistic mind in RODVT and I think probably psychology generally, the thinking is a change is unnecessary. Fixed mind is change is unnecessary because it’s going to be the same way it’s always been. And fatalistic mind or change is unnecessary because it’s not possible. And how important and valuable flexible mind is when you are experiencing a change that’s beyond your control when it is, okay, my body is changing and I’m experiencing some mental health changes that I haven’t experienced before. And the necessity for flexible mind in order to manage that. And what I have to remind myself all the time is be kind of flexible mind.
(28:11):
Flexible mind has a really hard time making it self-known, but it can be so important and so valuable. So just that reminder of kind of my mantra, be kind of flexible mind. Allow yourself to get there. And what are you depriving yourself of by your tendency to say, I got to stop this change. Or why even try to do anything about this change? Because there is help out there. There are people you can talk to. Just the fact that this is being featured on a podcast. There are lots of conversations, there’s books, there’s physicians who are specializing it. So it is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be the end.
Julie Church (28:53):
Correct. Yeah. Love that. That’s a great word. Yeah. And I think that my thought around RDBT so much emphasizes that express yourself, allow for these emotions to be known. And so then hear where would that run into some of the workplace norms that maybe wouldn’t be as receptive or inclusive to those things, which is probably in all ages, but how there can be when there are a lot of women that are leading organizations or are managers of groups. And so can they also set that norm that yes, it is okay to share openly what’s going on and have there be some sort of way to be known in that way, which then opens up that yes, people are going through different things, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to be incapable in the job or not get the job done or still bring the deliverables that people might need in whatever field they may have.
(29:48):
So I think that’s good to think about too. Okay. So I loved that one of the things I read in your conclusion statements and things within your dissertation was this. I’m just going to quote you I do here. It says, “When women experiencing menopause feel valued for their individuality and have the autonomy to manage their work in ways that respect their full lives, they’re significantly less likely to make the decision to leave their organizations.” And so I liked just that individuality and the autonomy. That’s kind of how the organization can be structured, but what would you have advice to the women in the workplace to kind of how to manage this season and potentially to change their work cultures to be more inclusive?
Janie Stuart (30:32):
Yeah, that’s a great question. To speak specifically to the statement, I kind of was wrapping up or trying to summarize the findings of the research, specifically the inclusion measures that I used. So one of them was team inclusion and within the team inclusion, there were two specific concepts that it measures. One is belongingness. How much do you feel like you belong to the team? And one was uniqueness. How much are you recognized or do you feel like what you bring to the team matters, makes a difference? And when I broke down the research to look more specifically at those two things, the one that was more statistically significant to reduce turnover intention was uniqueness, which surprised me. I expected it to be belongingness. So there’s lots of different possibilities for this, but one I was thinking of was this idea of women of a certain age or women experiencing menopause feel invisible?
(31:30):
So when they are acknowledged, when they’re celebrated for what specific things they bring to a team, then that really matters. It can make a difference to them feeling like they want to stay, they’re feeling like they are included in a team that they’re working for. So whatever you can do, whether that’s celebrating them with pay and promotion, which is probably what most people want, fantastic. But also just acknowledging them, celebrating them, allowing their voice to be one that’s heard amongst all of the team can be really important and help them feel like they are not marginalized in the workplace, but are celebrated and matter. And then another inclusion measure that I looked at was, as we talked about a little bit before, non-gendered inclusion. So does the workplace have norms that are more neutral or not? And within that, there were three sub-scales and one of those was put work first.
(32:29):
So if it’s in a workplace that doesn’t require you to put work first, then the turnover intention was lower. So this idea of allowing as much as possible, I recognize that not all workplaces can do this because you’re working a shift and it just doesn’t work out that way. But maybe you give them autonomy in choosing their shifts as much as possible or giving them flexible schedules in order to kind of manage life as much as they can. You give them really small little elements of control, like temperature control, if that’s possible in a workplace. If woman’s experiencing a hot flash, if they can turn the temperature down, that can do so much to their wellbeing and kind of dealing with it. Or a desk van. Small little things that aren’t going to break the bank and cost a bunch of money can make a big difference in women being able to feel like this workplace cares about my comfort and cares about my ability to do my work best.
(33:27):
And that might require a few little adjustments while I’m going through this life transition. So those are the ways in which on the individual level, organizations might be able to address what women might be experiencing. On the organizational level, I will say, I think what a lot of the research says and what I personally think based on what I studied as an organizational psychologist, what can be most important is managerial training. When a supervisor can help kind of buffer the negative impacts or the symptoms that you might be experiencing with menopause that can pay dividends in someone’s experience in the workplace. Inclusive leadership that involves listening openly, offering flexibility when it’s possible, checking in proactively rather than reactively. Asking a really simple question like how is your physical and mental health? So you don’t have to ask, “Hey, how are your menopause symptoms?” It can be just a little question that you ask to every person, every direct report you have.
(34:40):
How’s your physical and mental health? How are you doing? And allowing people the time and space to answer that question because that is going to have an impact on their work performance, but giving them the space to kind of talk about it and maybe problem solve and troubleshoot. What are things we can do to help you deal with that, help you manage it? I think can be really important and valuable for anybody experiencing a health challenge regardless if it’s menopause or not.
Julie Church (35:06):
Yeah, totally. These are such great tips. Thank you. I think too that the acknowledgement piece when I just know that as one progresses in their career, it’s like they brought so much to the organization and they have so much more experience than the younger colleagues. And so just making sure that those things are getting acknowledged seems really simple, but I could see how it could get missed too. And then I love those practical things. I actually love that question and I think I’ll take that into my management of my team because I think it’s obviously very relevant. I probably ask it in different ways, but I love that directness and just really simple way of asking it and encompasses so much. Okay. Is there anything else that you would want for our listeners to know? Any other.
Janie Stuart (35:54):
Oh, one other idea or tip. Okay. In the working world, they’re called employee resource groups. They’re often for historically underrepresented groups in the workplace to be able to come together and be together in their workplace to talk about their experiences. And there are some organizations within the US that have ERGs, employee resource groups for women experiencing menopause. And I just want to mention, it doesn’t necessarily have to be official, but if a woman is experiencing menopause, put it out there. Maybe there are other women that are also experiencing it that could use the time and space to have a conversation to people who will listen. I had open responses in my research to allow people to kind of talk about how menopause symptoms are impacting their work and their experience in the workplace. And quite a few people talked about how important it was to have somebody to talk to.
(37:00):
So just having the space to talk about it can help you deal with your symptoms regardless of there being any massive outcome from that.
Julie Church (37:12):
Absolutely. Yeah. Community. That means a lot for whatever we’re all going through. It’s just to not feel alone.
(37:19):
So that’s great. Well, thank you. I hope listeners, that you have gotten something new, different, that you also feel like maybe seen if you’re going through this transition. And I hope those that are loved ones to those that are going through this life transition of menopause have learned something new too to be able to, maybe it’s not an inclusive workplace, but maybe it’s an inclusive home to menopause. So thanks for being here. I really appreciate your wisdom. Okay. So if people want to read more about your dissertation, there will be a link in the show sheet so that folks can find and read more if they want to read the nitty gritty of this research. And any other resources that Janie gives us, I will make sure to include there as well. So thank you to Jack Straw Cultural Center for Sound Engineering. Thanks to Aaron Davidson for the Appetite Original Music and to David Bazzi for editing.
(38:12):
If you want to learn more about Opal’s programming, go to opalfoodandbody.com or follow us on Instagram. Until next time.
