Menopause Matters: Building a Supportive Workplace Culture at Queen’s University Belfast

Institution and Department: Queen’s University, Belfast
Author: Professor Karen McCloskey, Former Director, Queen’s Gender Initiative and Academic Lead for Athena Swan, Professor of Physiology. Paula Dougan, Athena Swan Institutional Gold Project Manager

Overview 

Queen’s University Belfast’s commitment to a supportive workplace culture saw a focus area of its Athena Swan programme dedicated to menopause/perimenopause. Development of new menopause-related support for women in the workplace including a policy, guidance, resources and menopause support fund built on learning from ongoing Menopause Awareness sessions. Conversations around menopause/perimenopause are becoming normalised, practical adjustments to working practices/patterns are enabled, and women are better supported in their careers.

About your organisation 

Queen’s University Belfast is one of three universities in Northern Ireland, is a member of the Russell Group and ranks in the top 200 world universities (24th in UK1). Queen’s has around 26,000 students (58%F) and 4,300 staff (54%F) from 96+ countries, engendering a rich and dynamic campus. Queen’s obtained a Royal Society Athena Award in 2003 and was a founding member of the Athena Swan Charter in 2005. 

Queen’s was awarded Institutional Athena Swan Silver in 2007. In January 2024, Queen’s became the first university on the island of Ireland and the second in the UK to achieve an Institutional Gold Athena Swan Award and the review panel commended the new menopause policy which featured in the application. All fifteen Schools in Queen’s hold Athena Swan awards (4 Gold, 6 Silver and 5 Bronze) (as of April 2025).

Purpose of the initiative 

In 2018, menopause was an increasingly recognised issue affecting women’s working experience and Queen’s offered a workshop, led by two Queen’s academic GPs, to explore the issue and raise awareness. As more than half of Queen’s staff are women, and around 45% are aged 45+ (the age typically affected by menopause/perimenopause), this represented significant unmet need. Staff had indicated that they wanted the university to do more in this area, and the workshop was quickly over-subscribed. 

Feedback was positive, sparking conversations and questions about what more could be done to support women experiencing menopause or perimenopause. The high demand for further sessions and new support measures were reflected in the 2019 institutional Athena Swan Silver Action Plan. 

Subsequent developments comprised a new menopause policy, guidance and supporting measures as described in the 2024 institutional Athena Swan Gold application.

Description of the initiative

The work had grassroots and institutional dimensions. In response to staff feedback at the first awareness session, the 2019 Athena Swan Silver renewal application included an action to appoint a ‘Menopause Champion’ to signpost to sources of support, organise informal meetings to enable women to connect and support each other and facilitate further awareness sessions. 

The action was superseded with development of a new menopause policy, guidance, resources and a menopause support fund. It was considered that embedding menopause initiatives within policy and practice would bring about real change and create an environment where women feel confident to discuss issues and ask for work-related adjustments. 

Policy development and co-creation of resources was led by the Diversity & Inclusion team (People and Culture) in collaboration with the Queen’s Gender Initiative, medical professionals specialising in women’s health, female colleagues, trans staff, LGBTQ+ networks and HR Business Partners. 

Following consultation across Queen’s, the new menopause policy was launched in August 2022 along with guidance, a portfolio of practical resources, a menopause support fund and an extended programme of awareness sessions. 

Menopause guidance aims to support all staff who may experience symptoms of menopause/perimenopause and outlines the roles and responsibilities of line managers, HR and employees. It also describes the support and work-related reasonable adjustments which are available, including: 

• Flexible and easy access to bathrooms/ changing facilities.
• Ensuring good ventilation (e.g. a fan, adjustable air conditioning), fitting blinds to windows, reviewing office seating plans.
• Flexibility with uniforms (where relevant).
• Temporary changes to duties e.g. reduced high-visibility work which can be challenging in the context of symptoms such as hot flushes.
• Changes to working patterns, workload adjustments, more frequent breaks and how to request these. 

Practical resources available on the staff intranet include:

• A Personal Menopause Assessment Template for self-assessment of symptoms (range, severity, frequency) that would provide context for discussions around necessary support measures/adjustments.
• A confidential Colleague Discussion Template to help communicate how symptoms impact day-to-day activities.
• A Menopause Advice Sheet to enable conversations with GPs.
• Managers’ Guidance.
• FAQs. 

A Menopause support fund contributes towards costs of fans, window blinds, additional uniforms or PPE (where relevant). To date, all applications to the Menopause Support Fund have been for fans and all have been approved. 

Menopause Awareness sessions continue to be popular, delivered by two academic GPs with a special interest in women's health, from the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s. The sessions are advertised in university communications e.g. Staff Round Up email.

Rationale 

It was considered that complementing Menopause Awareness sessions with a portfolio of resources would build engagement and trust and importantly, provide practical access to support for colleagues at the point of need. The launch of a menopause policy assures staff that the related actions and initiatives have longevity, confirming Queen’s commitment to enhancing a supportive workplace culture. 

Delivering further Menopause Awareness facilitated by academic GPs would foster discussions between staff and trusted healthcare professionals. It would also facilitate sharing information across the university on the impact of the new guidance and workplace adjustments in supporting women to remain in the workplace, manage their symptoms and maintain their careers. 

Results 

The new menopause policy has helped remove stigma and is bringing menopause and women’s health into day-to-day conversations. Women undergoing menopause or perimenopause can expect colleagues to be better informed, show understanding, and for this matter to be met with dignity and respect. Staff now have appropriate opportunities, as well as the practical tools and templates, to discuss the support/adjustments they need. The Menopause Awareness sessions continue to normalise conversations and provide trusted health-related information. 

There is growing awareness of our menopause policy and other policies that enable a supportive workplace. In the 2023 Queen’s Equality Survey, 70% (73%F, 69%M) of respondents agreed that policies and guidance documents enable an inclusive culture. In the 2023 Staff Survey, two-thirds agreed they would feel confident raising a wellbeing issue with someone at work. 

Since the new policy launched in August 2022, five menopause awareness sessions have been held with 191 staff attending (97%F, 3% M). One session was specifically targeted towards line managers with 41 attending.

Feedback from the Menopause Awareness sessions is collected via evaluation forms. Encouragingly 100% of respondents rated the sessions as Excellent/Very Good and shared insightful qualitative feedback including: 

“Being able to talk to actual GPs was brilliant and knowing other staff were experiencing the same things as me was a huge relief and support.” 

“It was great how open and relaxed everyone was in talking about this subject and how sharing their own experience, was encouraged.” 

“Great to talk to professionals who are passionate about supporting women going through the menopause.” 

The menopause policy launch attracted a high level of interest from other sectors. Queen’s received an Inspire Workplace Wellbeing Award for its promotion of menopause awareness (2019). The policy launch in August 2022 was reported widely by the media and we became a reference resource for other organisations and universities who requested our innovative templates, toolkits and expertise. 

The annual Queen’s Gender Initiative Clare Macmahon Lecture in May 2023 featured journalist, author and menopause expert, Kate Muir, speaking on ‘Everything you wanted to ask about the Menopause but were too afraid to ask’. 

An unexpected (but welcome) outcome has been that students were inspired to lead innovative projects around menopause and women’s health. As part of their Entrepreneurship studies module, a group of female MEng students founded a spin-out company, Feminatech, to develop a symptom-tracker App for menopause and perimenopause symptoms. They won awards at the Belfast Telegraph Business Awards and received funding from QUB Dragons’ Den and Catalyst's 2023 INVENT competition.

Key barriers and facilitators 

Continued development of a supportive workplace culture for women experiencing menopause or perimenopause has been significantly enabled by academic GP colleagues who have been willing to deliver awareness sessions for staff. Engaging their expertise to take the lead in the sessions and provide trusted information has built confidence and understanding amongst staff, so that they have engaged with the sessions and guidance materials. 

The allocation of budget for the menopause support fund in addition to colleagues working together to create a culture in which solutions-focussed conversations can take place means that the policy, guidance and resources are impactful.

The future?

It is around three years since the menopause policy and associated guidance, practical resources, menopause support fund and Menopause Awareness sessions were launched. We regularly review interest and match the number of sessions in a given years to demand and the availability of our GP academics, typically two sessions per year. We will evaluate the use and impact of the practical resources to assist staff and managers to have menopause-related conversations over coming months by issuing feedback/evaluation forms. We are continuing the conversation around women’s health in the workplace and held a new ‘Period Problems Awareness’ session earlier this year with further events planned for related topics.

Advice for other members

• If you haven’t already done so, open the conversation about menopause/perimenopause and women’s health in the workplace.
• Ensure your policies are widely communicated and accessible.
• Harness the opportunity of menopause to open conversations about other areas of health. 

Web links

Include links to any websites or research articles related to your initiative. You can also share relevant twitter handles if you would like Advance HE to tag you or your organisation in our social media posts about the case study. 

• Queen’s University webpage with Menopause policy, guidance, FAQs, Menopause Support Fund and signposting to further resources: https://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/HumanResources/diversity-and-inclusion/menopause/
• Queen’s Gender Initiative https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/QueensGenderInitiative/