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The most capable women in your organisation may be quietly losing confidence right now. Would you know?
Perimenopause and menopause affect women right across your workforce, often for years, and often long before anyone connects the dots. The brain fog, anxiety, loss of confidence and shifting sense of self that can come with the transition rarely look like menopause at work. They look like a capable person struggling. And most organisations have no framework to recognise it, respond to it, or support it well.
Did you know?
1 in 10
Women leave the workforce due to menopause symptoms
2 in 3
Say symptoms negatively affect their work
Spring 2027
Menopause Action Plans mandatory for 250+ employers
Menopause isn't a moment. It's a transition, and it's happening in your workforce right now.
Perimenopause can begin in a woman's late 30s or 40s and last for years before menopause itself. For some women it begins earlier; for others it arrives later. Either way, the women going through it are often your most experienced, capable and senior people, at the height of their careers.
And because the conversation still centres on one age and a list of physical symptoms, the emotional, cognitive and identity impact goes unrecognised: the loss of confidence, the brain fog, the self-doubt. By the woman herself. By her manager. And by the organisation responsible for supporting her.
"Women don't just experience physical symptoms during this transition. They can experience a profound shift in confidence, identity and sense of self. And they are very often doing it in silence."
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What organisations are missing
Talent loss
Experienced women leave roles they should be thriving in, not because menopause defeated them, but because the environment around them wasn't equipped to support them.
Invisible performance impact
Brain fog, fatigue and confidence erosion don't announce themselves. Without awareness, they're misread as attitude or capability problems.
Leadership pipeline
Women navigating perimenopause and menopause are often the same women being developed for leadership. Losing their confidence at this stage has consequences far beyond the immediate role.
Culture and trust
When women feel unseen through a significant life transition, the ripple effect on team trust, morale and psychological safety is immediate and lasting.
The whole transition
There is no average woman, and no single menopause.
Effective workplace support recognises the full menopause transition and the many ways it can unfold. GIRFEW™ is built around all of it.
Perimenopause
The lead-up. Hormones begin to fluctuate and symptoms can start years before periods stop, often without women or their managers recognising why.
Menopause
The point at which periods have stopped for 12 months. For most women this happens around the early 50s, but the experience around it varies hugely.
Postmenopause
The years that follow. Symptoms can continue or change, and support needs don't stop when a woman reaches menopause.
Some women's experiences don't follow the expected path at all: menopause that arrives early, prematurely, or as the result of surgery or medical treatment. Support built around an "average" menopause tends to miss them. GIRFEW™ is designed not to.
The legislative landscape
Menopause Action Plans are coming. The organisations acting now will be ahead of them.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 marks the most significant shift in UK workplace equality law in a generation. For the first time, menopause support is becoming a public, structured organisational commitment, not just a wellbeing aspiration.
Timeline
April 2026
Now
Employers with 250+ employees can publish voluntary Equality Action Plans, including menopause support, alongside gender pay gap reporting
Spring 2027
Expected mandatory
Expected to become a requirement for employers with 250+ employees, subject to secondary legislation
Right now
Any size
The legislation sets a floor for large employers. Leadership is available to organisations of any size
The current action-plan provisions apply to employers with 250 or more employees. The impact of inaction doesn't. Women experience perimenopause and menopause in organisations of every size, and losing one experienced woman from a team of 20 is felt very differently to losing one from a team of 500.
"Working with Jo came at a time when I felt completely lost, heartbroken, and unsure of who I even was anymore. Through our sessions, something shifted in me. I began to see my life through a completely new lens, one where I could reconnect with what truly matters to me and what actually makes me feel happy and alive. Jo gently helped me find myself again, helping me rediscover parts of me I had forgotten and giving me tools that supported me far beyond our sessions For the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of confidence, and hope."
ANONYMOUS
The GIRFEW™ Framework
An evidence-informed framework for supporting every woman through the menopause transition.
Most workplace menopause support is built around assumptions: a particular age, a particular symptom profile, a policy that treats every woman the same. The Getting It Right for Every Woman™ (GIRFEW™) Framework challenges those assumptions. It is informed by active research and lived experience, and designed to standardise the quality of the organisational response, not the woman.
The five GIRFEW™ Framework Principles:
1.
Every woman's experience matters
No single menopause journey. Support begins without assumptions about age, symptoms or presentation.
2.
Psychological safety comes before support
Support only works when women feel safe enough to seek it, without fear of career consequences.
3.
Leadership shapes experience
Managers and leaders decide whether psychological safety exists in practice, through every interaction.
4.
Support should be individualised
No two women need the same support. Responses should be flexible, collaborative and needs-led.
5.
Inclusive culture is an ongoing commitment
Policies alone don't create inclusion. Sustainable support needs continual learning, accountability and employee voice.
What changes
From confusion to clarity.
BEFORE
Questioning your sanity and capability
Battling symptoms with no context
Feeling isolated and misunderstood
Blaming yourself for falling apart
Lost, disconnected, and exhausted
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AFTER WORKING WITH JO
Understanding what's actually happening
Clarity, language, and a path forward
Supported, heard, and not alone
Compassion for yourself and your experience
Grounded, confident, and re-emerging
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WHY JO
Specialist expertise. Active research. Lived experience of the transition.
Jo Rennie is the founder of the Getting It Right for Every Woman™ Framework: a qualified transformative coach and former music therapist with over 20 years of experience supporting emotional wellbeing and personal development.
Jo has lived the menopause transition herself, including a diagnosis of early menopause at 41 after years of symptoms nobody had connected. That experience taught her how isolating and disorienting it can be without the right awareness, and what a difference the right support makes.
She is currently conducting formal research into the lived experience of the menopause transition at work and its impact on mental health, with a particular focus on women whose experiences fall outside the "average" narrative, including early, premature and atypical menopause. The GIRFEW™ Framework is informed by that research. This is not generic wellbeing content. It is specialist, evidence-informed work.
Credentials:
Diploma in Transformative Coaching · MSc Music Therapy · 20+ years in practice · Lived experience of the menopause transition · Founder, GIRFEW™ · Active formal research
Getting it right for every woman starts with a single conversation.
A free 30-minute consultation is the first step. We'll talk about where your organisation is, what your people need, and how GIRFEW™ can help you get there.