Why your company must implement fertility and
menopause policies now.
There’s
plenty of research to show that happy employees are more productive and
that objectively ranked happy companies (via Glassdoor and other review sites)
outperform other publicly listed companies on the stock exchange.
Listening to your employees and responding to their needs is
crucial. Only more so today than ever, where employees are in short supply
generally and where there’s an even greater scarcity of top talent in areas as
diverse as Sales, engineering, software programming, data science and more.
What should you do to attract and retain talent and ensure
that your employees are not quiet quitting (or even rage quitting)?
One key step is to start implementing reproductive
healthcare policies at your company. For example, menopause support is a hot
topic and will only grow in importance in the workplace. Menopausal women are
not only some of your best-performing and most productive employees but also
tired of being ignored. According to the latest research, 42% of women consider
leaving their jobs because of menopause.
If you don’t have a policy, why not check out a typical
menopause policy template? Many companies, such as the BBC, Astra Zeneca, Diageo, and Santander, already have these policies in place.
Ultimately, these productivity losses can cost more than
$150 billion a year, according to research company Frost & Sullivan. They
show that other healthcare costs could rise to $810 billion.
Research by Bupa and CIPD in 2019 also found that almost a
million women in the UK left their job in the last year because of menopausal
symptoms.
To avoid losing significant numbers of some of your most
valuable employees, the female workforce aged 35-65 (which could be 100 million
employees in Europe or 10 million), you must offer rigorous menopause support.
Your employee brand is also likely to be labelled sexist and
ageist if you don’t start responding to this critical demographic of your
workforce. Here are some of the best menopause websites if you want to explore
more about this issue:
European Menopause and
Andropause Society
International
Menopause Society
Then there’s the rising problem of fertility. One in Six of
your employees will struggle with fertility problems. Did you know that 77% of
Gen z’s and millennials said they would stay at a company if it offered
fertility benefits, and a large majority said they would even consider changing
jobs for better benefits?
Fertility is no longer solely a women’s issue. All
family-forming benefits policies must be developed to meet the needs of LGBTQ
employees, as well as men, because up to 50 percent of fertility issues sit
with them.
We know that IVF is still a luxury service for most people.
This financial burden is an additional tax for women of colour, LGBTQ+ , and
single people. That is why employers create health policies for people
regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, or marital status;
it promotes economic equity in the workplace.
Some of your company’s most productive and valuable employees
could be struggling with a range of issues, such as:
- Finding the best egg-freezing clinic
- Finding the best IVF clinic
- What are the best ovulation apps?
- Fertility Support
And the outcomes can be brutal for an employee, from having
to take time out of their busy schedules to arrange doctors’ appointments, to
experiencing depression if their latest round of IFV has failed. The impact on
your business, too, could be severe.How can you better support your employees going through
fertility struggles at work? Read our Manager’s guide to fertility
challenges for more details on how you can help.Encourage your employees to be open about their problems. This
sounds easy but can be one of the hardest challenges. HR is often seen as ‘the
enemy’ in this environment with little company or employee loyalty.Research
shows that in many organisations, employees
would rather talk to anyone than talk to Human resources about their
problems. Indeed, the same goes for sharing the most personal and vulnerable
information about your fertility journey.1. Will HR use this information against me at any
time?2. Will my colleagues be supportive? Or will they
be judgemental and even unkind?When we inquired about employees’ reluctance to turn to HR, Harvard
Business School found that 37% of respondents believe HR is more interested in
advocating for their company than they are for them.You want to be an organisation where your employees do not
feel such negative emotions and feel they can open up and be vulnerable about
challenges such as menopause or fertility.But the flip side is that if your company is a healthy place
to share, supports its employees and enables them to share their challenges and
problems, you can breed many success stories.Meet Samantha, one of our first-ever Fertifa patients and mum to twins Millie and Mia. After being diagnosed
with endometriosis and trying for over a year to have a baby, Samantha found
Fertifa through her employer. Here’s her
story.The goal has been to turn yesteryear’s reactive and
compliance-focused HR model into one where leaders are seen as both trusted
executive partners and employee advocates. In this approach, HR leaders sit at
the leadership table to advise executives on culture and speak up for employees
and their needs.So far, many employees’ fertility needs have been ignored by
their employers. However, companies like Centrica, NatWest, Clifford Chance, and
Twilio offer fertility support, ranging from help finding egg-freezing
providers to IVF. To find out more about menopause support and fertility
support at work, go here.
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