Private conversations, trained managers and regular follow-up are at the center of Acas’s push to treat menopause and perimenopause as a workplace issue before they become an absence problem, a performance warning or a tribunal claim. Employers should start those conversations early, handle them properly, and keep checking back as symptoms change. For employees, that turns a vague request for understanding into a clear ask for adjustments, records and review.
What Acas expects employers to do
Employers should make sure they have steps, procedures and support in place, and workers should be invited to talk privately about how menopause is affecting them and what would help. Managers should be trained so those conversations are handled sensitively and consistently, not left to chance or to the personality of one supervisor.
The key point is follow-up. Employers should have early and regular follow-up conversations to understand workers’ needs and identify any adjustments needed so they can do their jobs effectively. Listening to concerns may help resolve issues early before any potential legal action is taken.
A practical workplace response usually starts with five things:
- a confidential conversation away from the team
- a named manager or HR contact who has had menopause training
- a short list of agreed adjustments
- a date for review
- a written note of what was decided
What you can reasonably ask for now
There is no universal fix, because symptoms are not uniform. Hot flushes and night sweats may call for temperature control. Sleep disruption, anxiety, brain fog or heavy bleeding may require flexibility rather than a single one-off adjustment. The point of regular follow-up is that support can change when symptoms change.
You can ask for a private discussion before your attendance or performance becomes a disciplinary issue. You can also ask for the conversation to cover the actual symptom that is causing the problem, not a vague reference to “menopause” as if it were one fixed condition. If your symptoms are severe, new or changing fast, see your GP, especially if heavy bleeding, sleep loss or anxiety are affecting daily life.
The Society of Occupational Medicine says menopause usually occurs between 45 and 55, but can happen any time up to a woman’s mid-60s. It can happen before 40 as premature menopause, and around 1 in 100 women experience that. The Society of Occupational Medicine says around 30 to 60 percent of women experience symptoms.
Where the legal risk starts
Menopause is not a standalone protected characteristic. The risk comes when symptoms are mishandled through sex, age or disability discrimination. Acas points employers to the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998, and its separate Equality Act guidance says discrimination law protects people at work because of protected characteristics.
The risk rises fast when symptoms are treated as misconduct. If a worker’s lateness, concentration problems or absence are logged as performance failures without any conversation about what is causing them, the employer is moving into dangerous ground. If a manager ignores repeated requests for adjustments and then sanctions the worker for the fallout, the problem is no longer just poor management.
In the 2025 Employment Tribunal judgment in Julie Evans v Eddie Stobart Limited, the tribunal said that at the relevant times in May to August 2024 the claimant was a disabled person under section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 because of the menopause.
Why this has become a mainstream workplace issue
The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee published its Menopause and the workplace report on 28 July 2022, and the Government was given two months to respond. The Equality and Human Rights Commission followed with workplace menopause guidance in February 2024, then published videos on 22 February 2024 explaining employers’ legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and how workplace adjustments can help avoid discrimination.
Acas told Parliament that in 2020 to 2021 it handled more than 700,000 calls to its national helpline and its website received nearly 19 million visits.
A December 2023 survey found four in five UK women felt workplace support for menopause was lacking. Catalyst’s 2024 survey found 84 percent of respondents wanted more menopause support at work, and more than one-third said their symptoms negatively affected them.