If you have a busy office or a big team it’s important that you make sure you are catering to everyone’s needs and that everyone is made to feels safe and comfortable in the workplace no matter what.
This can be achieved in many different ways, and it’s easy to track visual clues and signs of how your employees are doing.
There are of course other, more hidden issues that you need to be on the lookout for. We you run a big team and you are trying to make sure everyone is doing well it can be easy to let things slip through the cracks.
If you have any women or AFAB employees on your team then you need to know how to support women’s health in the workplace, even when the issues are not so easy to spot.
Here are some women’s health issues that you might need to be aware of.
Menstruation
Menstruation or periods happen once a month and they can be incredibly uncomfortable. Having to work whilst you are suffering period pain can be extremely difficult, especially if you feel like you can’t talk to anyone about it.
According to a study by Bupa 23% of the women surveyed have taken time off to deal with a period and 36% of these women said they lied about why they were taking time off as they didn’t feel comfortable talking about it.
You need to make sure that your employees feel like they can talk to you about anything, make sure that they have a secure and private way of getting in touch with you.
Sometimes women will just need to take time off if they are suffering, especially if they suffer from Endometriosis which is an illness that can make periods very difficult and painful.
If possible try and make the workplace as period friendly as possible. If a woman needs to take more breaks or work her breaks around her period then you should let them. Also if there is something that can help women with the pain, like having a hot water bottle or stress ball handy then you should let them as long as it doesn’t seriously affect other workers.
Making changes to the workplace to make things easier for women whilst they are suffering is always beneficial. Not only will your employees feel a little bit better, but it means that they will feel more comfortable coming into work if they know that they can deal with these issues.
Menopause
As women get older, their periods will become less and less frequent and then they will stop altogether. This is known as menopause and will happen to all women eventually. It usually happens when a person is around 45 to 55 years of age, but it can happen sooner.
You need to treat a person going through menopause much like you would a period, make sure they feel safe and that they can talk to you and allow them extra breaks and comfort items.
Menopause however can cause a person a lot of stress and upset as the body is going through a huge hormonal change. Because menopause can have a huge impact on people it can be beneficial to have someone who is trained with how to deal with the situation.
Training With Wellspace
Here at Wellspace we can provide training to help you better manage and understand your team. We can help you as a team leader learn how to identify when a member of your team has a problem, and we can also teach you the best way to deal with these problems.
Being able to understand your team is a hugely important part of managing a good productive workplace. When you know how to effectively deal with a team member’s problems you can start to overcome them together and make the workplace a better place to be.
When it comes to supporting women’s health in the workplace you need to be careful and know what to do to help and not make things worse. If you think a woman on your team is struggling or you want to be prepared in case one of them needs help in the future then you can speak to a Wellspace expert today.
Get In Touch
We can offer specialist advice on wellbeing questions and tell you how our wellbeing app will support your company. (And therefore your team, too!).
Contact us for more information or call us on 0808 178 0748. One of our team experts will be happy to chat with you!
