Dan Wilde, Head of Employment at Harding Evans Solicitors, explains how employers across Wales can manage menopause in the workplace effectively while meeting their operational needs.
Equality action plans and the Employment Rights Act 2025
Ahead of a new duty under the Employment Rights Act 2025, private-sector employers with 250 or more employees can now voluntarily publish equality action plans alongside their gender pay gap reports. Each plan should include at least one action to address the gender pay gap and at least one to support employees experiencing menopause, including perimenopause and post-menopause.
Publication is expected to become mandatory from spring 2027, subject to secondary legislation. The government has published guidance on creating an action plan. Different rules apply to public authorities in Wales.
Smaller businesses are outside the planned mandatory requirement, but they still have legal duties. There is also a strong business case: supporting experienced employees to stay in work preserves skills and avoids the disruption of losing valued team members.
Start with a private conversation
Menopause affects people differently, so the starting point should be a private conversation about how the employee’s work is being affected and what might help. This gives you a clearer picture before deciding what support is appropriate.
Employees should be able to explain their concerns without being pressed to share more personal information than they are comfortable with. Manager training helps these conversations go well, and Acas guidance on menopause at work offers practical tips.
Agree practical workplace support
Some changes are straightforward, such as better ventilation or an adapted uniform, and a workplace risk assessment can help identify them. Others, like changes to hours or duties, need closer consideration. In small teams especially, changing one person’s working pattern can affect cover and colleagues’ workloads.
Be specific about any operational difficulties. If a later start would leave a customer-facing service uncovered, explain that and explore whether cover could be rearranged or another adjustment could help.
Record what is agreed and set a review date. This lets both sides check whether the arrangement is working and whether anything needs to change.
Menopause and the law
Employers of all sizes already have responsibilities under equality law. Menopause is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, but treatment linked to symptoms can lead to sex, age or disability discrimination claims. The EHRC’s employer guidance sets out these obligations.
Symptoms may amount to a disability if they have a substantial and long-term adverse effect on someone’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. Where workplace arrangements put a disabled employee at a substantial disadvantage, employers must make reasonable adjustments if they know, or could reasonably be expected to know, about the disability and the disadvantage.
What is reasonable depends on the circumstances, including the adjustment’s effectiveness, cost and practicality, and the employer’s resources. Employers do not have to agree to every request, but should consider effective alternatives where a proposed adjustment is not reasonable.
Consider this duty separately from any statutory flexible working request. Further reforms under the Employment Rights Act 2025 are expected to take effect in autumn 2027. These will strengthen consultation requirements and require employers to explain both the business grounds for refusing a request and why the refusal is reasonable. Until then, the existing flexible working rules continue to apply.
Employers also have health and safety duties, and risk assessments should consider whether working conditions could worsen menopause symptoms.
You can continue to manage attendance and performance. Before deciding how to proceed, check whether symptoms are contributing to the concern and factor in any support or adjustment duties. Taking advice early helps keep the process fair and reduces the risk of an employment tribunal claim.
Put a menopause policy in place
A written menopause policy gives managers a consistent process and makes clear when to seek advice. It should fit the way your business operates and work alongside existing absence and flexible working procedures.
Consistency means handling concerns fairly and explaining decisions, while accepting that different people and roles may need different arrangements. The aim is to provide effective support that you can keep under review, protecting working relationships and giving the business confidence in its decisions.
How Harding Evans can help
Whether you need a menopause policy, training for your managers or advice on a specific situation, our employment law solicitors in Cardiff and Newport can help you put support in place that works for your people and your business.
We can also help larger employers prepare their equality action plans, whether they choose to publish voluntarily now or are preparing for the expected mandatory requirement.
For advice and support, contact our Employment team at Harding Evans on 01633 244233.
