Menopause and the Cost of Silence

Dan Simons wants real talk-- and the Founder and Co-owner of Farmers Restaurant Group has taken on the mantle of making it ok to talk about menopause at work.

“I think that menopause is a human issue. One set of humans experiences it and it just seems incredibly important that all humans “get it.”

A few years ago, Dan asked a colleague how she was doing. “She said, ‘I'm a mess. This menopause thing is killing me.’ I said, tell me more. She said, ‘I don't even know anymore. Oh my God.’ I was like, wow. So I said to her, well, we work on this together. It just felt like a normal business conversation.”

According to U.S. census data, there are more than 15 million women ages 45 to 60 in the workplace- and we all go through menopause. The cost of menopause for both women and for businesses is high. In my interview with Simons and Amy Gallo this week on The Anxious Achiever, Gallo shares that four out of every 10 women who experienced menopause symptoms said that it interfered with their work performance or productivity every week. And 17% of those people said they have quit a job or considered leaving because of menopause. Menopause costs American women an estimated $1.8 billion in lost working time per year, according to a Mayo Clinic study. According to the New York Times, Researchers at the University of Southampton in England analyzed data from a longitudinal study of over 3,000 women and found that those who reported at least one disruptive menopausal symptom at the age of 50 were 43 percent more likely to have left their jobs by the age of 55.

Perimenopause and menopause hit us when we’re at the peak of our careers. We don’t need to stop working but we might need a little understanding.

The worst part is that many doctors don’t talk about menopause with patients. The topic is under-researched and we are under-educated about this profound experience affecting physical and mental health.

Common symptoms include cognitive changes and “brain fog,” mood shifts, hot flashes and physical discomfort, and fatigue. Hormone shifts starting with perimenopause (while women are still getting a period) can create anxiety, depression, and mood changes.  I know that at certain times of the month, my mood swings and feelings of anxiety, rage, and sadness can be overwhelming and make my head spin! Outside I’m the same me; inside I’m a hurricane.

But wow, it can be hard to talk about your perimenopausal or menopausal symptoms at work. The topic summons so many things we’re uncomfortable with: women’s bodies, mental health, aging, even sex.

As a way of opening the door to a conversation, Amy Gallo might bring it up casually as a way of opening the conversation. She might say to a colleague, “Wow, I forgot that. I'm sorry, it’s brain fog from menopause or I haven't been sleeping well, it's menopause. And I try to use that word, but I do feel like when I do that, it's tattooed on my head. I'm old. I just feel like it's a disclosure about my age, which I wish wasn't such a big deal, but all the research shows it is. And so I'm really trying to navigate, how do we rethink how we think about aging, especially women aging at work and in society too, while I also work on my own comfort level with disclosure.”

My conversation with Dan and Amy brought up something crucial -- something we’re all struggling with at work. It’s hard and uncomfortable to talk about personal things that affect our work. No one teaches us how to talk about these things but of course we bring our whole selves to work, and sometimes those selves need some options!

The cost of silence can be greater than the cost of uncomfortable conversations.

Gallo notes that we tend to focus only on the risks of having personal conversations. “We ask ourselves, is it appropriate? Will Legal be upset with me? Will HR be upset with me? Will it offend this person? And we think about the worst case scenario; we don't think: what are the risks of not having that conversation and do those outweigh the risks of having the conversation? And I think we forget to do that important step of evaluating the costs of silence. Particularly around a topic like mental health and menopause, we're seeing the costs of silence. We're seeing women leave the workplace workforce. We're seeing them retire early.”

To Dan Simons, it’s simple. He asks “Why is everybody not talking about health and therefore mental health in the workplace if what they are allegedly trying to do is grow revenue, increase share price, increase retention, etc.? When I want to talk about hospitality or the detailed steps of service that lead to a guest just feeling loved and wanting to have a restaurant that's beloved, I need the people executing those steps to be focused, tuned in, ready to execute. If one of the things on your [personal] list is interruptive to the goals we have at work, then it's a work topic. And for me, it's that simple. I'm not saying that everyone has to push through their own boundaries. If someone isn't comfortable, then great, let's work on increasing the comfort level…. Why don't we work on the boundary so that we can then work on the work?”

Boundaries are important, and everyone has different boundaries. What feels fine to me might feel scandalous to you. That’s ok, and there’s a line between sharing personal stuff that feels icky and sharing personal stuff that people need to know because it affects work.

The process of getting comfortable talking about difficult things is just that… a process. It doesn’t happen overnight and it’s something leaders can model. Because when personal issues affect your work, we need to talk about them.

Teams can practice getting comfortable with talking about personal issues that bleed into work.

Here’s my 100% guaranteed “way in” to make it comfortable to talk about more personal things at work: talk about sleep! Seriously, everyone loves to talk about sleep.

If you’re not sleeping well -- and about 30% of Americans aren't-- you can mention this in your next staff meeting, check in, or team retreat. See what happens! I bet people open up….

Say: “I didn’t sleep well last night. I was feeling (stressed, anxious, worried, overwhelmed, the kids were screaming, etc.).

Try it and let me know what you think!

Morra