The Menopause Benefits Gap: Why Employer Investment Isn't Enough
Employer investment in menopause benefits and workplace menopause support is growing, reflecting greater recognition that menopause can have implications for employee retention, productivity, healthcare utilization, and the ability to retain experienced mid-career talent. But as organizations add new resources, there is another question worth asking: Are employees actually equipped to recognize when those benefits are relevant to them?
Research suggests there is still a significant gap between offering menopause support and employees actually using it. Research conducted by Bank of America and Ipsos found that among employers offering menopause-specific benefits, fewer than one-third of women were aware those benefits were available and only 1 in 10 reported using them. For employers investing in menopause-specific solutions, healthcare coverage, Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), mental health resources, and virtual care, that gap represents an important opportunity to improve the value of resources that may already exist.
The Menopause Benefits Utilization Gap
Benefits utilization is often treated primarily as a communication challenge. Employers announce a benefit, include it during open enrollment, add information to an intranet or benefits portal, and periodically remind employees that the resource exists. Menopause creates an additional challenge because employees first need to recognize that what they are experiencing could be connected to the menopause transition.
Perimenopause can begin well before many women expect it. Symptoms can include sleep disruption, cognitive changes, difficulty concentrating, anxiety, mood changes, hot flashes, night sweats, and other physical and psychological changes. In the workplace, those experiences may initially look like something else. An employee struggling with sleep and concentration may assume she is burned out, while someone experiencing new anxiety may seek mental health support without recognizing that hormonal changes could be one contributing factor.
If menopause never enters an employee's frame of reference, she has little reason to search the benefits portal for menopause support. That means an organization can have excellent resources in place and communicate them effectively while still missing an important piece of the utilization equation.
Benefits Communication and Menopause Education Serve Different Purposes
Benefits communication tells employees what resources are available. Workforce menopause education helps employees understand when and why those resources may be relevant. Many employers already provide resources that could potentially support employees during the menopause transition, even if they do not offer a standalone menopause benefit. Depending on an organization's benefits package, those resources may include primary or specialty healthcare, mental health services, EAPs, virtual care, flexible work policies, or other workplace resources.
Employees cannot effectively navigate resources they don't realize they may need. This is why workplace menopause education can function as a benefits activation strategy rather than simply an awareness initiative. Evidence-based education gives employees foundational information about the menopause transition so they are better equipped to recognize what they are experiencing, seek appropriate medical guidance, and identify the benefits and workplace resources available to them.
I Experienced This Gap as an Employee
I know how easily this disconnect can happen because I experienced it myself. During my corporate career, my employer offered menopause support through our benefits package, but I didn't know it existed. Awareness of the benefit wasn't the only problem. Even if someone had told me about menopause resources when I was 41, I likely would have thought they were something I might need when I was older.
I didn't realize I was already experiencing perimenopause. At the time, I was dealing with disrupted sleep, brain fog, anxiety, and changes in focus while managing a demanding career and raising a young family. I attributed what I was experiencing to stress and burnout because menopause never occurred to me as a possible contributor.
That experience ultimately changed how I think about workplace menopause benefits. The barrier isn't always whether support exists. Sometimes the barrier is whether employees have enough information to recognize that the support is relevant to what they're experiencing.
The Business Case for Better Benefits Utilization
Before moving into women's health and workplace menopause education, I spent more than 15 years in the finance industry. My work required me to look beyond whether an organization had made an investment and ask a more important question: Are we realizing the value of it? I believe employers should apply the same thinking to menopause support.
The Mayo Clinic has estimated that menopause symptoms are associated with approximately $1.8 billion in lost work time annually in the United States, increasing to an estimated $26.6 billion when medical expenses are included. Bank of America and Ipsos also found that among women who had access to menopause-specific benefits, 58% reported that those benefits had a positive impact on their work.
These findings point to an important opportunity for employers. Organizations are already investing significant resources in healthcare, mental health services, EAPs, virtual care, and increasingly menopause-specific solutions. When employees don't understand when those resources apply to them, employers can experience a gap between benefits investment and benefits activation while continuing to absorb workforce costs associated with unsupported symptoms.
The solution isn't necessarily adding another benefit. In some organizations, the greater opportunity may be helping employees understand and effectively use what is already available.
From Menopause Education to Workforce Impact
I use a four-stage framework when helping organizations think about menopause education and benefits utilization: Educate → Identify → Activate → Impact. Education provides employees with evidence-based information about perimenopause and menopause, including when the transition can begin and how symptoms may present. That knowledge helps employees better identify when changes they are experiencing may warrant further exploration or support.
Once employees can make that connection, they are better positioned to activate the healthcare, benefits, and workplace resources available through their organization. Better activation gives existing employer investments a greater opportunity to support outcomes organizations already care about, including benefits utilization, employee retention, workforce performance, and the ability to retain experienced mid-career talent.
This is why I don't view workplace menopause education as simply an awareness initiative or wellness campaign. It can serve as the bridge between employer investment and employee utilization, making it an important component of a broader benefits and workforce strategy.
Moving Beyond Offering Menopause Benefits
As menopause benefits become more common, employers should move beyond asking whether they offer menopause support and begin examining whether employees are equipped to recognize and use that support. For HR and benefits leaders, that means considering what resources are currently available, whether employees know those resources exist, and whether employees have enough foundational education to recognize when they may be relevant.
Closing that gap can help organizations move from simply offering menopause benefits to actually activating them. It also creates an opportunity to maximize existing benefits investments rather than assuming another program or solution is always the answer.
I help organizations close the gap between menopause benefits and employee utilization through evidence-based workforce education. Drawing on more than 15 years in the finance industry and my experience as a former Fortune 500 finance leader, my work helps employers translate women's health challenges into measurable workforce impact while strengthening benefits utilization, retention, and organizational performance.
Learn more about workplace menopause education and training for employers, or contact me to discuss what an education strategy could look like for your workforce.
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