Menopause in the workplace is better understood than it has ever been, and still largely unsupported. Every October, brands, employers and healthcare organisations add their voices to Menopause Awareness Month. More conversations are welcome. But awareness and support are not the same thing, and the gap between them is where most women are still standing.
Awareness Has Risen but Support Has Not Caught Up
Menopause awareness activity has done something genuinely useful. It has made the subject harder to ignore. World Menopause Day fills a news cycle, internal campaigns go up, and the language has moved on.
What we wanted to understand was whether any of that reaches the people living through it. So we looked at what is actually being said.
What Our Research Found About the Menopause Conversation
At Brand Champions, we analysed online conversations across news, social media and forums using our Waves insights platform. Waves found that mental health and cognitive issues featured in 38.6% of the symptom-related discussion we analysed, while sexual health accounted for just 3.7%.
That is not a measure of how common those symptoms are. It is an indication of how unevenly different experiences surface in public conversation. Anxiety, brain fog and sleeplessness are increasingly being discussed. Vaginal dryness, discomfort and changes to intimacy can still be difficult to raise.
For communicators, this matters. If we only amplify the symptoms everyone already recognises, we risk leaving the less visible experiences just as misunderstood as before.
It also changes what a campaign is for. A brand that joins the loudest part of the conversation adds volume to something already audible. A brand that works out what is missing from it has something useful to say.
Why Every Channel Needs a Different Menopause Conversation
The same research revealed different needs across different channels.
Instagram often provides lifestyle advice and reassurance. TikTok uses humour and personal storytelling to challenge stigma. Anonymous forums allow women to ask the questions they might not feel comfortable voicing elsewhere.
A generic campaign cannot do all three jobs. The same message, cut three ways, is not channel planning; it is a single idea hoping to be understood three times over.
What Targeted Communications Actually Change
We have seen the difference that more specific, targeted, practical communications can make.
In one women’s healthcare campaign, we addressed low awareness of vaginal atrophy through audience research, expert-backed education and coordinated content for consumers and healthcare professionals. The campaign was associated with a 17% increase in awareness of the condition.
In another, we worked on a campaign encouraging healthcare professionals to discuss a wider range of hormone replacement therapy options with patients, rather than allowing habitual prescribing patterns to shape every conversation. The creative was built around clarity and individual choice, not a blanket recommendation for any particular treatment. That distinction matters: as NICE guidance makes clear, HRT decisions should reflect personal circumstances, preferences and clinical risk.
Menopause in the Workplace What Employers Need to Do
Meaningful support cannot end at the pharmacy or the GP surgery. For most women, the place where menopause symptoms are hardest to manage is work.
CIPD research published on 4 October 2023, based on a survey of more than 2,000 UK women aged 40 to 60, found that 17% of those who had experienced menopausal symptoms had considered leaving work because of insufficient support, and 6% had left. One in six considering the door, and one in sixteen already through it.
Supporting menopause in the workplace takes more than an awareness event in October. Three things make a tangible difference: flexible working that is genuinely available rather than theoretically available, line managers who are informed enough to respond well the first time they are told, and a culture where the conversation is safe to start. A menopause policy is worth having, but it is the manager in the room who decides whether anyone uses it.
Five Principles for Brands Communicating About Menopause
There is a lesson here for every brand, whether it sells healthcare products, employs people or simply wants to engage women more thoughtfully.
Listen before creating. Find out what your audience is actually discussing, and what they are not.
Address the questions people are hesitant to ask, not only the ones they ask loudly.
Use language that informs without shaming or sensationalising.
Plan by channel, because reassurance, humour and anonymity are three different jobs.
Judge success by what people understand, access or experience differently, not only by impressions and engagement.
Turning Attention Into Lasting Change
Menopause Awareness Month has helped make the subject harder to ignore. The next challenge is harder, and far more important: turning that attention into useful information, better conversations and lasting change.
If you are planning menopause communications, a workplace programme or a women’s health campaign and want it built on evidence rather than assumption, we would be glad to talk. Our Service on Stand-by model is built for exactly that, putting experienced marketers into your team at the pace a campaign needs.
What support should employers offer for menopause at work?
Flexible working, informed line managers, a written menopause policy and a culture where the conversation is safe to start. CIPD research found that 17% of women experiencing symptoms had considered leaving work because of insufficient support, so the cost of offering none is measurable.
Is menopause a reason to be off work?
It can be. Symptoms vary enormously, and some are severe enough to affect attendance and performance. Employers who treat this as an ordinary health conversation rather than an exception tend to lose fewer people to it.
Why do some menopause symptoms get discussed more than others?
Visibility and stigma, not prevalence. Our Waves analysis found mental health and cognitive symptoms in 38.6% of symptom-related discussion, against 3.7% for sexual health, which says more about what feels sayable than about what women experience.
What should a menopause awareness campaign avoid?
Amplifying only the symptoms that are already well understood, running one message across every channel, and measuring success by reach alone.
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