“Gen X women are digital savvy, influential in the workplace, and not prepared
to be dismissed as “old”. We’re going to be the first generation to
go through menopause on our own terms.”
Kate Billing, The NZ Listener, January 2022
Menopausal women (40-60) are the fastest growing workforce demographic on the planet with projections there will be ONE BILLION women experiencing menopause at work by 2025.
New Zealand specific research by Dr. Linda Dear (conducted in early 2023) revealed 8% of women transitioning through menopause leave the workforce early each year.
According to NZ census data there are 500,000 women in this life stage in paid employment in Aotearoa New Zealand. That means a potential loss of 40,000 ‘peak career’ women from our workforce each year. Talent organisations, our economy, and our country can precious afford to lose.
The potential of this life stage to negatively impact women’s identity, confidence, relationships, career, financial security, and long-term health cannot be overstated.
By supporting women to understand and navigate this temporary transition smoothly, using workplace education and support, employers will reap the benefits through greater wellbeing, engagement, and performance, and an enhanced reputation and employer brand.
Fuelled by the frustration, anger and sadness of her own ill-informed arrival into perimenopause, Kate felt inspired to create a community aimed at enriching, elevating, and amplifying the workplace conversation about peri/menopause/ruahinetanga in New Zealand to change that experience for others.
In September 2021 she founded the Menopause@Work Community on LinkedIn (originally called the Menopause Awareness & Action Community). Now the largest and most active group of its kind on LinkedIn not just for New Zealand but GLOBALLY, the private group is “the home of in-house menopause champions and workplace changemakers across in Aotearoa New Zealand”. The group is for women, leaders of influence, menopause specialists and advisers, and HR, OD, DEIB and Wellbeing professionals who feel inspired to lead change around menopause at work in New Zealand organisations large and small.
AS INDIVIDUALS: we must take responsibility for educating ourselves, be that about our own experience (current or future) OR that of the people we work and lead with.
AS LEADERS & ORGANISATIONS: we must recognise the significance of this transition for women and create workplace cultures, policies, practices and development experiences that support those going through it and the people they work with, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because in a world of rapidly changing workforce demographics, the retention, engagement and performance of senior women is of strategic importance.
Join over 2300 people in our Menopause @ Work (NZ) LinkedIn Group.
Along with the Menopause@Work Community, in late 2021 Kate created Pause for Thought, a ‘free to air’ web series of conversations about the experience of menopause and how we can be and do better to support women through this transition in the workplace.
Pause for Thought asks you to do just that – pause – to stop, to listen, and to think deeply as we share stories of organisations doing the mahi to better support their women, learn from experts in the various fields that support this stage of life, and understand how we can play our part in creating positive change.
Check out our Events Page for details of the next session
so you can join Kate and her guests ‘live on-line’
and catch up on past conversation recordings below.
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