Menopause at Work: Confidence, Mistakes and What to Say to Your Manager

You are three sentences into the point you came to make. Everyone is looking at you. And the word, an ordinary word you have used every working day for twenty years, is simply not there.

Somebody younger supplies it, kindly, and the meeting moves on. You will still be turning it over at 3am, next to the question underneath: is this the beginning of them seeing me differently?

Menopause at work means managing symptoms such as hot flushes, broken sleep, brain fog and anxiety in a place that rewards sharpness and stamina. Most women go through menopause while employed, and the hardest part is rarely the flush itself. It is the fear that colleagues will see a woman who is slipping, and the silence that fear creates.

What it feels like from the inside

The symptom lists cover the flushes. They rarely cover what I hear in the counselling room: watching yourself from the outside and not liking what you see.

The loss of confidence. Women at the most senior point of their careers often tell me that their judgement is as good as it ever was, but that they have stopped trusting it. A woman who had run a department for a decade told me she now re-read every email three times before she could send it, although nothing was wrong with any of them.

The lost word. Word-finding is the most reported cognitive symptom of the transition, and it lands hardest exactly where you are most visible. I have written about why it happens, and about the dementia fear underneath it, in the article on perimenopause brain fog and memory. What matters for work is this: the lapses are real, they fluctuate with sleep and stress, and they are not a measure of your competence.

The fear of being seen as past it. This is the one women say quietly. Our working culture tends to treat a man of 52 as experienced and a woman of 52 as past her best, and menopause arrives at exactly the age when that prejudice applies. So a woman hides the flush, hides the fog, hides the sleepless nights, and carries both the symptoms and the constant effort of appearing not to have them, which is exhausting in itself.

The mistakes. Yes, menopause can cause mistakes at work. Poor sleep, anxiety and fog together will produce the missed detail and the transposed number. It is worth noticing how you explain the mistake to yourself, because a colleague who makes the same error usually puts it down to a bad week, while a woman in menopause tends to treat it as proof that she is losing her ability.

The Fawcett Society’s 2022 research found that around one in ten women who worked during the menopause had left a job because of their symptoms, and the CIPD’s 2023 survey found that around two thirds of working women aged 40 to 60 with symptoms said they had a mostly negative effect on them at work. That is a great many experienced women leaving jobs without ever saying why.

What you can ask for

Under the heading of reasonable adjustments, most workplaces can offer more than you think, and most of it costs nothing:

• A desk near a window, a fan, or some control over the temperature where you sit
• Flexible start times after a bad night, or the option to work from home some days
• Short breaks when a flush hits, without having to explain each one
• A uniform in a lighter fabric, or permission to adapt it
• Agendas ahead of meetings and written follow-up afterwards, so memory is not the only record
• A named person to speak to who is not your line manager, if that relationship is the problem

None of this is special treatment; it is what an employer would do for a colleague with a bad back, and in my experience the asking is far harder than the granting.

The conversation with your manager

Most women I see have rehearsed their resignation more often than this conversation. So here is a plain script. Adapt the words, keep the shape.

Ask for ten minutes in private and open with the frame, not the symptoms: “I want to tell you about something health-related that’s affecting me at work, so we can sort out a couple of practical things. It’s the menopause.”

Then say what it does, in one or two sentences, and stop: “Some days I’m not sleeping, and the heat and the brain fog make meetings harder than they used to be. My work is fine. I’m finding it harder than I need to.”

Then make the ask, specific and small: “Two things would help. I’d like to move to the desk by the window, and I’d like to start an hour later after a bad night and make the time up.” Close with the line they are hoping for: “I’m not asking for anything dramatic. I’d rather tell you now than have you wonder.”

That last line matters most, because it raises the thing you are most afraid of, being wondered about, and says it out loud, which makes it far less frightening. A woman in her early fifties spent months certain her manager had noticed her slipping. When she finally had the conversation, he had noticed nothing at all, and the desk moved that afternoon.

Your rights, in one paragraph

This is not legal advice; I am a counsellor, and for your own situation speak to ACAS or an employment adviser. In broad terms, the Equality Act 2010 does not name menopause as a protected characteristic, but treating a woman unfavourably because of her symptoms can amount to discrimination on grounds of sex, age or, where symptoms have a substantial and long-term effect on daily life, disability. Where that disability threshold is met, an employer has a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments, and employment tribunals have found in some cases that severe menopause symptoms meet it. ACAS publishes guidance on menopause at work and encourages employers to have a written policy. If you feel you have been treated badly, the ACAS helpline is the place to start.

When the work problem is about more than work

The work problem is often part of something larger.

Many women have built their worth on being the one who copes, who holds the diary in her head and never drops a ball. Menopause takes the spare capacity that made that possible, and it can feel as though it has taken the identity with it. That is a loss, and it needs grieving as well as managing. Midlife rarely sends one loss at a time: your relationship is renegotiating itself, and for many women the children are leaving in the same few years. If the work fear feels like more than a workplace issue, it probably is, and Has menopause changed who I am? is the companion to this piece.

Here is what I see once women have done this work. The woman who asks for the adjustments, has the conversation and stops pretending does not become less effective at work. She usually becomes more direct, less apologetic and more confident in her own position. For the wider map of where this fits, start with the stages of menopause.

Frequently asked questions

What are my rights at work with the menopause?

Menopause is not itself a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, but unfavourable treatment because of your symptoms can be discrimination on grounds of sex, age or disability, and where symptoms are severe and long-lasting your employer must make reasonable adjustments. ACAS publishes free guidance on menopause at work and runs a helpline for individual questions. This is general information, not legal advice.

Is menopause a reason to be off work?

Yes. Menopause symptoms are a legitimate reason for sick leave, exactly like any other health condition. You can self-certify for the first seven days, after which you need a fit note from your GP, who can also state that you may be fit for work with adjustments, often the more useful route. Time off is reasonable; a pattern of it without a conversation is where problems start.

Can menopause cause you to make mistakes at work?

Yes. Broken sleep, anxiety and brain fog together affect concentration, word-finding and working memory, so missed details and small errors are common during the transition. They are not a sign of declining ability: the lapses fluctuate, track your sleep and stress, and respond to written notes, single-tasking and agendas ahead of meetings. How you interpret the mistake usually matters more than the mistake itself.

Why do I feel like menopause is destroying my life?

Because it affects several areas of life at once: sleep, mood, memory, body, relationships and work, often alongside ageing parents or children leaving. That is a great deal of loss to carry without anyone naming it, and loss that nobody names can turn into despair. You are not being dramatic. If the feeling persists, your GP should know, and a counsellor can help you separate what needs treating from what needs grieving.

I have spent my working life helping people through the transitions nobody prepares them for, and the working woman in menopause is one of them. If this article named something you’re carrying, book a free discovery call here. Next in the series: the empty nest and menopause, when two losses arrive at once.

This article is part of The Menopause Journey, an eight-part series.
Previous: part 5 · Next: part 7