Your rights at work

What you might recognise

The meeting where you couldn’t remember a word you used to use ten times a day. The night sweat the night before an early start, and the early start that nearly broke you. The hot flush in the boardroom, and the slow horror of watching everyone notice. The colleague who has stopped including you in things because you have become “a bit unreliable lately.” The performance review where someone, kindly, asks if you are coping.

Twelve years in the same job. A career you built over decades. And suddenly you are wondering whether you can keep doing it, and whether the answer to that question is something to do with you, or with how the workplace was designed.

You did not become bad at your job. The job was designed for a body that wasn’t going through this. The body and the job both deserve adjustment.

The law, briefly

Menopause is not a separate protected characteristic in UK law. But it is covered by the Equality Act 2010 in three places:

• Sex discrimination. Menopause affects women predominantly. Treating someone worse because of menopause symptoms can be sex discrimination.
• Age discrimination. Most women going through menopause are over 40. Treating someone worse because of age can be age discrimination.
• Disability discrimination. Severe and ongoing menopause symptoms can meet the legal definition of a disability under the Equality Act, which means your employer must make reasonable adjustments.

What reasonable adjustments can look like

• Flexible start and finish times (a 9.30am start if 7am is impossible after a bad night).
• Hybrid or remote working where the job allows.
• A cooler workspace, a desk near a window, a fan.
• Permission to take short breaks when needed without explaining each one.
• Time off for medical appointments without it counting against attendance.
• A uniform or dress code adjustment if the standard one is unsuitable (synthetics, ties, polo necks).
• Reasonable allowance for menopause-related absence not being counted against you in the same way as other absence.
• Quieter workspace if sensory sensitivity is a factor.
• Adjustment to deadlines or workload where workable.

You don’t have to disclose a diagnosis

One of the biggest misunderstandings: you do not have to tell anyone you are going through menopause to ask for an adjustment. You don’t need a doctor’s note. You don’t need to use the word.

“I’d like to discuss some adjustments to my working pattern that would help me work at my best” is a complete sentence.

If you do want to disclose, that is also your right. But it is not the entry price for asking for help.

How to actually ask

• Ask in writing. An email is best. It creates a record.
• Ask for a private meeting, with notice. Not a corridor conversation.
• Be specific. “I’d like to start at 9.30 on Mondays after a bad sleep” is easier for someone to say yes to than “I need more flexibility.”
• Don’t apologise. You are not being a burden. You are asking for something the law supports.
• If you’d rather write it down properly first, our Letter Generator has a Letter to my employer option.

If they push back

Ask, in writing, for the reason. You are entitled to it.

Ask what would be reasonable instead. Sometimes the first no isn’t the final no.

Speak to your union if you have one.

ACAS on 0300 123 1100, free, confidential, kind. They will talk you through next steps without pressure.

Citizens Advice can help if you are not in a union.

A no-win-no-fee employment lawyer is worth a free initial chat if things have gone properly wrong.

If you are being treated unfairly

Write everything down, as soon as you can. Date, time, what was said, who was there. A contemporaneous note carries weight in tribunals.

Raise it formally, in writing, with your manager first, then HR.

Keep copies of everything.

Don’t resign before you have to. Constructive dismissal is harder to prove than direct dismissal.

Get advice early. ACAS first.

Your money matters too

If menopause is making you consider leaving your career, please think about it twice, slowly, with proper financial advice. Many women lose pension contributions, career progression, and earning power by stepping back in their late 40s and 50s, and find it hard to recover.

Sometimes leaving is the right call. Sometimes it is a temporary problem looking permanent. Treatment, adjustments, and time can change the picture.

If you are about to leave a job you have been in for fifteen years, please ask one more time for what would help. The career you saved might be your own.

Specific resources

• British Menopause Society, for finding a specialist who can write you a proper assessment for work.
• ACAS, 0300 123 1100, free workplace advice.
• Menopause at Work, employer guidance, sometimes shareable with your HR.
• Your union, if you have one. Use them.