(Peri)menopause can bring both physical and cultural challenges into the workplace. Australian Red Cross Lifeblood combined practical adjustments, lived experiences and leadership buy-in to design a meaningful response.

(Peri)menopause affects most people in one way or another, whether they experience it themselves, manage someone who does or support a partner or family member through it. 

But despite its ubiquity, (peri)menopause is still a challenging topic in many workplaces, with varying levels of understanding and confidence across organisations.

For employers, that inconsistency creates risk. Unmanaged (peri)menopause symptoms can affect everything from concentration to safety and performance. Workplace stigma around these symptoms can also jeopardise psychosocial safety and push experienced employees out of the workforce altogether. According to Menopause Friendly Australia, a quarter of women experiencing (peri)menopause consider leaving their jobs due to symptom impact.

Recognising the prevalence of (peri)menopause among its workforce, the People and Culture team at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood set out to gain a deeper understanding of its impact.

“Women make up approximately 75 per cent of Lifeblood’s workforce, and approximately 30 per cent of our workforce are likely to be experiencing (peri)menopause at any given time,” says Rebecca Hayes, Co-Health and Wellbeing Manager at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.

“Back in 2019, we noticed some interesting insights in [our data] around injuries. [For example], approximately 80 per cent of incidents that involved lost time at work were related to musculoskeletal disorders.”

When the data was examined more closely, they found that women in the typical (peri)menopausal age range were overrepresented, she says.

“What we also noticed is that women in the age profile of (peri)menopause [experienced] compounding factors such as mental health disorders and sleep disturbances.”

The findings brought the intersection of (peri)menopause with safety, performance and retention into sharp focus.

In response, the team worked with an external consultant and Lifeblood’s own workforce to develop a roadmap for destigmatising this workplace reality and improving support. 

The result was Lifeblood’s Support the Pause initiative, which won the Best Health and Wellbeing Strategy award at last year’s AHRI Awards.

Below, Hayes and fellow Health and Wellbeing Manager Holly Patterson share what it took to move (peri)menopause out of the shadows and put meaningful support frameworks in place.

Removing stigma around (peri)menopause symptoms 

For Lifeblood, destigmatisation had to start with leadership. Without visible role-modelling from leaders, conversations around (peri)menopause would likely remain tentative or nonexistent.

“The strong engagement and support from our Executives and Board from the outset made a profound difference in advancing a strategy with such a contemporary focus,” says Patterson. 

“To position Support the Pause at the senior leader level, we openly said, ‘Look, we understand this topic can be difficult… But whether it has already or not, it will impact you at some stage.

“[We ask leaders] to lean in and get comfortable, because their direct reports are going to hear about [Support the Pause], and they’re going to expect them to have an understanding about what the organisation is doing in this area.”

“To position Support the Pause at the senior leader level, we openly said, ‘Look, we understand this topic can be difficult… But whether it has already or not, it will impact you at some stage.” – Holly Patterson, Health and Wellbeing Manager, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood

As conversations became more open, the team was able to engage employees meaningfully in shaping its strategy.

“We established a menopause at work reference group that included diverse representation from across the organisation to guide and provide valuable input into the development of that roadmap,” says Hayes.

“There were some really interesting practical insights – for example, [some people said] that during a hot flush at work, it was challenging to put on latex safety gloves, or that their safety glasses would fog up. [Those were] things that we hadn’t really considered that were impacting their work and concentration,” says Hayes.

Informed by these insights, some of the practical measures introduced to support employees experiencing (peri)menopause included:

• Implementing visual cues for team members experiencing brain fog. (For example, one donor centre team adds small stars to plasma machines as a visual cue to help staff quickly identify which donors have triggered alarms.)
• Provision of free period and (peri)menopause products for staff, donors and visitors.
• Adaptation of uniform fabrics for increased comfort.
• Provision of USB fans to help manage hot flushes.
• Ensuring access to cool water in all workspaces.

To ensure employees can access this support quickly and easily, Lifeblood developed a “reasonable accommodations” guide, which lists common (peri)menopause symptoms and the corresponding supports available.

These small but impactful changes helped ensure support wasn’t just talked about, but felt in everyday work.

Gain practical insights to better support women’s wellbeing, reduce burnout and create more sustainable ways of working at AHRI’s Women, Wellbeing & Workload webinar on 4 March.

Enabling long-term cultural change

The practical measures rolled out by Lifeblood made an immediate difference to the everyday comfort and safety of employees experiencing physical (peri)menopause symptoms. 

However, the team recognised that the impact of (peri)menopause ran deeper than physical discomfort alone.

During the consultation stage, some employees impacted by (peri)menopause shared that they had lost confidence at work, and were hesitant to apply for promotions or take on new responsibilities.

This meant the practical supports needed to be backed up by sustained cultural change that  built confidence and reinforced that (peri)menopause should not limit career progression.

To help maintain momentum and embed support throughout the business, the team established a peer support champions network, whose role is to enable open discussions and redirect colleagues and leaders to available resources.

For example, if a manager asks how to start a conversation, a champion can point them to conversation guides. If an employee shares a symptom they’re struggling with, champions can highlight the practical offerings in place.

When the network was formed, 78 employees stepped up to take part, almost half of whom were leaders and 10 of whom were men. 

“We have some male Support the Pause champions who have been brilliant and really open about finding their place in the conversation,” says Patterson.

“[One manager] contacted me after he had seen me present to senior leaders and said, ‘That was really interesting – I would love for you to come to my team and do something similar.’ When I did that, he opened up as a male leader with predominantly female direct reports, and said to them, straight up, ‘I don’t know much about this. But I’m learning.’”

The initiative has been a learning curve for the organisation as a whole. As understanding deepened, language evolved – including clearer distinctions between perimenopause and menopause, and greater awareness that menopause itself is a single point in time rather than a prolonged phase. 

Shared learnings like these helped shift conversations away from assumptions and towards lived experience. Over time, this collective effort has created an environment where curiosity is encouraged and questions feel safe to ask.

Leadership confidence in this area has improved significantly. In 2025, 89 per cent of people leaders at Lifeblood reported at least moderate confidence in discussing menopause – up from low levels in 2024 – and 100 per cent no longer view it as an embarrassing topic.

“Recently a few female colleagues were having an open conversation about how [badly] they’d slept the night before due to perimenopausal symptoms,” says Hayes. 

“Would that have happened five years ago in an open office? Probably not. That’s an indicator to me that there’s been a massive cultural shift.”

Learn how to implement wellbeing initiatives in your organisation with this course from AHRI, designed to give you a step-by-step process for designing a wellbeing strategy tailored for your organisation’s unique needs.