The Menopause Reality Check
Why Menopause Month Should Be A Moment Of Strategic Reflection, Not Awareness
Every October, as organisations mark World Menopause Day and Menopause Awareness Month, the conversation tends to follow a familiar pattern. Media coverage focuses on symptoms. Employers launch awareness campaigns. Health professionals share advice. Social media fills with personal stories and well-intentioned messages of support.
World Menopause Day, led globally by the International Menopause Society, has played an important role in bringing menopause out of the shadows and into public discourse.
What if one of the biggest risks facing productivity, leadership succession and economic growth isn't AI, skills shortages or hybrid working, but a biological transition affecting millions of employees that many organisations still treat as a wellbeing issue?
Yet for founders, board members, business leaders, policymakers and investors, October should represent something more significant than awareness. It should be a moment of reflection.
It is a moment to examine whether the systems that organisations have spent decades building are capable of retaining, supporting and benefiting from some of the most experienced, qualified and influential women in the workforce.
Beyond the awareness campaigns lies a more uncomfortable question.
“What happens when women reach their peak influence years?”
Not when they are entering the workforce. Not when they are climbing the corporate ladder. Not when they are identified as high-potential talent. But when they have acquired the experience, judgement, networks, leadership capability and institutional knowledge that organisations spend years trying to develop.
For millions of women, that period coincides with menopause.
The irony should concern every executive team and boardroom in the country. At precisely the stage when many women are stepping into their most influential leadership roles, growing mature businesses, serving on boards, mentoring future talent and contributing at the highest levels, many are simultaneously navigating one of the least understood transitions of their professional lives.
Research from the CIPD found that 73 per cent of working women aged 40 to 60 experienced symptoms associated with the menopause transition, while 67 per cent reported a negative impact on work and more than half had been unable to attend work at some point because of their symptoms.
This is why menopause is no longer simply a health conversation it is a:
leadership conversation.
talent retention conversation.
economic participation conversation.
business continuity conversation and increasingly, it is a conversation about whether organisations truly understand the value of leadership capital in an age when experience has become one of the most precious and irreplaceable assets available to them.
The Invisible Attrition Problem Few Organisations Are Measuring
As more and more organisations are looking at reporting their return on investment (ROI) for their investment in artificial intelligence development, there is a greater cost that needs to be accounted for.
There will be robust financial tracking and measurement of intellectual and human capital. But far fewer leaders are paying attention to leadership capital.
Leadership capital is the accumulated value created through decades of experience, knowledge, relationships, resilience, industry expertise and institutional memory. It cannot be replaced through recruitment campaigns or on-boarding programmes. It takes years to build and moments to lose. Yet across sectors, businesses are discovering that retaining experienced women can be more challenging than recruiting them.
The consequence is not simply an individual health issue it is an organisational capability issue.
The UK Government has repeatedly highlighted the importance of supporting women to remain and progress in work, particularly as women over fifty represent a growing segment of the workforce and economic activity. Helen Tomlinson, the Government's Menopause Employment Champion, has helped elevate menopause from a private health concern to a workforce issue with implications for retention, progression and productivity.
Viewed through this lens, menopause is no longer a wellbeing conversation but a business continuity conversation. This is not because women are unable to lead but because too many systems were never designed with this stage of leadership in mind.
The Experience Economy Is Colliding With The Longevity Economy
The old career model assumed people would gradually withdraw from professional life as they approached their sixties. That assumption no longer reflects reality.
Women today are extending careers, launching businesses later in life, building portfolio careers, serving on boards, investing, mentoring and creating social impact well beyond traditional retirement expectations.
At exactly the same time, ageing populations are reshaping global labour markets and creating greater dependence on experienced workers. This creates a fascinating paradox where the economy increasingly needs experienced women yet many organisations remain focused on attracting talent rather than sustaining it.
That distinction matters because when a twenty-eight-year-old employee can be recruited, a fifty-five-year-old leader with thirty years of industry knowledge cannot simply be replaced. Which means the future of competitive advantage may depend less on attracting talent and more on retaining expertise.
Therefore it can be argued that menopause sits directly within that conversation.
Why Awareness Is No Longer The Main Challenge
A decade ago, awareness was the challenge whereas today, awareness is the easy part.
The workplace taboo has been challenged. Media coverage has expanded significantly. Employers are introducing menopause policies. Governments have developed guidance. The International Menopause Society continues to lead global awareness efforts through World Menopause Day, observed annually on 18 October.
The problem is that awareness can create the illusion of progress.
Today an organisation may have a policy and a leader may have attended a workshop. Interestingly, managers may even know the terminology. Yet none of those automatically translate into better outcomes because the real challenge is implementation.
Going forward it will be important that employers understand why their retention strategies fail women at the most senior levels and the cost of losing experienced women?
But it goes further than the Board. Executives are looking at how organisations not only redesign careers for longer working lives but retain leadership capability during periods of transition?
The health services still struggle to ensure equitable access to support across cultures which shows up when leaders are unable to sustain performance without sacrificing wellbeing?
These are not awareness questions, they are systems questions.
The Cultural Story Hidden Beneath The Statistics
One of the most persistent myths surrounding menopause is that women experience it in broadly similar ways.
Biology may be universal. Experience is not.
Culture shapes how symptoms are interpreted, discussed and treated. It influences whether women seek support, how families respond and the degree to which workplaces understand the realities people are navigating.
For many Black women, South Asian women and women from other ethnically diverse communities, menopause may intersect with additional pressures involving caregiving responsibilities, cultural expectations, faith traditions, healthcare inequalities and community perceptions around ageing.
This is where the conversation becomes particularly relevant to leadership. Women do not arrive at menopause carrying biology alone. They arrive carrying the weight of professional responsibilities, family obligations, community commitments and decades of accumulated experience.
A discussion about menopause that ignores culture risks overlooking some of the most important drivers of inequality. This is why conversations about menopause increasingly need to become conversations about equity because not everyone experiences the same workplace, the same healthcare system or the same menopause.
The Intergenerational Shift That Is Redefining Leadership
Perhaps the most significant trend of all is that menopause is no longer simply a midlife issue it is becoming an intergenerational leadership issue.
For the first time, many organisations are operating with four generations working side by side.
A Generation X executive navigating menopause may be managing a Generation Z team that expects unprecedented transparency around wellbeing and psychological safety.
A Millennial founder may be balancing the early stages of perimenopause alongside childcare responsibilities and ageing parents.
A Baby Boomer entrepreneur may be extending her career because economic realities and personal ambitions no longer align with traditional retirement models.
These dynamics are reshaping expectations of leadership itself because the old model rewarded endurance. Now the emerging model values sustainability that represents a profound cultural shift.
The Question Every Leader Should Be Asking
The most important question this October is not whether menopause matters but whether the evidence has already settled that debate. Research demonstrates significant impacts on attendance, performance, retention and progression, while policymakers, employers and healthcare organisations increasingly recognise menopause as a workplace and economic issue.
The more important questions are what menopause reveals about the systems we have built but what does it reveal about how organisations value experience, reveal about how we define productivity, the support available to leaders during their most influential years, equity within healthcare and employment and the future of longer careers.
Being able to answer these questions reaches far beyond menopause. It touches leadership, longevity, talent, power, inclusion and economic participation. That is why menopause deserves the attention of boardrooms, policymakers and business leaders. Not because it is a niche women's issue. But because it shines a light on one of the defining leadership and workforce challenges of the next decade.
The real menopause reality check is the future will not be shaped by organisations that simply attract talent, it will be shaped by those that understand how to sustain it.
Join the Conversation
The real challenge facing organisations is no longer whether they recognise menopause, but whether they understand the commercial and human cost of failing to support women during some of their most influential professional years. When experienced women reduce their responsibilities, turn down promotion or leave the workforce, organisations risk losing far more than talent. They lose institutional knowledge, leadership judgement, valuable relationships and expertise that has taken decades to develop.
Join NBWN for Menopause at Work on Thursday, 22 October 2026, from 6:00–7:30 pm (UK), as we move the conversation beyond awareness to examine what meaningful workplace support should look like. We will explore the intersection of culture, intergenerational expectations, leadership, health equity and organisational responsibility, challenging employers and women alike to reconsider how we sustain careers, protect professional influence and recognise the economic value of experience.
This important discussion is led by Dionne Lewis-Reid, who will bring an insightful perspective on confidence, communication and the challenges women face when advocating for themselves in professional environments.
For more than twenty years, Dionne has supported senior leaders through career transition, redundancy, leadership development and personal transformation, helping them recognise their value and navigate change with confidence.
Having worked with major organisations, her contribution will help explore how experienced women can articulate their needs, maintain their professional authority and navigate difficult workplace conversations without feeling that their credibility or career progression is at risk.
Your experience should strengthen your future, not become the reason you are overlooked.
This is a great time to examine what needs to change, what women should be asking for and why this conversation belongs at the heart of modern leadership.
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