How to manage your periods at work
Our focus for this Season is the 4 Ms (Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause) and I'm delighted to welcome Julie Collins Powell as my guest. Today, we'll be talking about something that is still regarded a taboo in the workplace, ‘How to manage your periods at work’.
A big thank you to The Surrey Park Clinic for sponsoring this season. Many of us don't prioritise our health. Whether we are juggling work, home-life or family, we often put our health concerns to the bottom of the list. But going through periods, gynae concerns, fertility problems, pregnancy and menopause can be physically and emotionally draining and can affect our confidence. The Surrey Park Clinic can help and will put your health first. Open 6 days a week and offering both virtual or in-person consultations, they are offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.
About this episode
Our focus for this Season is the 4 M’s which are Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause, and how these can affect women at work. I’ll be talking to some incredible women and experts from around the world to share their real-life stories, advice and tips, to inspire you in your career.
I'm delighted to welcome Julie Collins Powell as my guest today. Julie works at Rathbone Brothers Plc and was a champion of the period and menopause group at her previous organisation. Today, we'll be talking about something that is still regarded a taboo in the workplace, ‘How to manage your periods at work’.
Resources
The Surrey Park Clinic: The Surrey Park Clinic is offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.
Book: Period by Emma Barnett. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Period-Emma-Barnett/dp/0008308071
App: Period Tracker. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/period-tracker-by-gp-apps/id330376830
My Confidence Matters Hormone Hubs: A major obstacle for women at work is dealing with the 4 Ms – Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause. The symptoms and side effects of all of these can be debilitating, impact a woman’s confidence and can lead to many days of sick leave, taking extended time off work or leaving the workplace altogether. Our Hormone Hubs are eight-week virtual group coaching programmes delivered on Zoom for up to eight women at a time to support your women with coaching, health and wellbeing support, access to specialists and providing a support network of colleagues. They can be run as a Menopause Hub, Monthlies/Period Hub, Maternity Hub and/or Miscarriage Hub depending on the needs of your organisation. Get in touch to find out more.
Episode transcript
Joy Burnford: Good morning, Julie. And welcome to The Confidence Conversation.
Julie Collins Powell: Thank you Joy.
Joy Burnford: It's lovely to have you here. And today we're going to be talking about something that is still regarded a taboo in the business context. We're talking about women's periods, not something you hear often talked about in business and in the workplace. So tell me a little bit about your background, if that's okay, and why this subject matters to you.
Julie Collins Powell: So I am 43 years old, and I have had periods since I was 11 years old. So it's a really big topic in my life and something that I'm passionate about. And I want to stop making it taboo in the workplace. So as I said, I've suffered for many years, and I've been working since I was 15. So it's an awfully long time to be working and suffering from severe periods. Two and a half years ago, I created a group called the period of menopause champions in a previous workplace. And I was the champion of champions. And it's because it's something I'm really passionate about. I want to, as I said, stop making it a taboo, bring it out into the open and recognise that, you know, half of the workforce are women, and so half of your workforce are more than likely going to suffer from periods in some way, shape or form.
Joy Burnford: On a regular basis. Interesting. I've never heard of a periods champion! Have you heard of other people doing that?
Julie Collins Powell: No, we did start off looking at menopause champions and decided that periods were a big thing as well, and so it covers a wide age of people. So it was something that we wanted to bring in because you can also have time off work and stressful conditions when you're on your periods, not just during the menopause. So that's why we decided to clump the two together.
Joy Burnford: Amazing. Was it supported well by the women?
Julie Collins Powell: Absolutely. We had about 30 champions that volunteered. And we had support from senior stakeholders, men and women. And we ran monthly calls and meetings online. And, you know, we're having over 100 people attend these meetings every month. And we will have people emailing us and asking us questions. Again, it was men and women that were asking questions.
Joy Burnford: What were the men asking about? How to deal with grumpy women?!
Julie Collins Powell: Absolutely! How to deal with teenage girls, you know, with wives, sisters, friends, colleagues, they were all interested to find out more about what we were doing as champions, and what support and help we could offer them generally. Sometimes just talk about, you know, what's it like for women going through their periods in work, you know, mainly male managers who really just wanted some help and support and were really open to the fact we were there to help them.
Joy Burnford: How were the monthly calls structured? Did you have a particular topic? Or how did it work?
Julie Collins Powell: We change them every month, we had a set agenda, we had guest speakers. So we had some of our champions would talk about their conditions, or their back stories. And we'd have guest speakers, we'd also do a little signposting information section, give people some links to different websites that they could go and do their own research on. We do a little quiz to make sure people were paying attention. So we tried to make it as fun as possible, because it's not really a subject that's fun, you know, so the more fun you make it, the more people will take it in and be interested and engaged with us.
Joy Burnford: Yes, amazing. So tell me, let's talk about the impact of periods on working women. So I know you've personally experienced dealing with heavy periods at work. Without getting too gruesome, can you tell me about the challenges that you faced? You know, how many days have you been affected? And you know, how have you kind of dealt with that?
Julie Collins Powell: So I am quite fortunate that I have been very regular. But I've been unfortunate in the fact that they are severe. So at least the first two days of my monthly, I'm out. The cramps are severe, there is risk of flooding. And when you're in work, that's not a place that you want to be, you know. There's severe headaches, and just genuinely feeling exhausted with the whole cycle. And in work, that's not a really good place to be because you have to concentrate, there’s stress and anxiety and the worry of am I going to flood? Am I going to be able to cope? Am I going to be able to not make people realise I'm suffering with cramps? It's a huge challenge once a month.
Joy Burnford: Yeah, it's really bad, isn't it? You sort of can't imagine, I've nothing against men at all. But you know, you can imagine if a man is sitting there and bleeding like, you know, gushing out blood, you know, it's not the kind of thing that you just would sit and put up with it!
Julie Collins Powell: No, I think women are a lot more emotional than what men are. And I think men might be able to just get up and deal with it. But as women, I know a lot of us sit and stress and worry about it. So yeah, it's difficult.
Joy Burnford: So tell me about, obviously, there are some recognised medical conditions relating to periods such as endometriosis. I'll say it for you, I know, you find it difficult to say that word! And this is something I only learned about a few years ago. Can you just outline some of that for our listeners who may not know about it?
Julie Collins Powell: Yes, absolutely. And I'll just caveat that I'm not a medical expert, but I have spoken to hundreds of women, and lots of them have suffered with this. So it's a growing of cells outside of the uterus. And the symptoms can be pelvic pain, severe pelvic pain, heavy periods, infertility, and just generally, a huge bloating of the stomach during you know, any time in their cycle. It tends to happen to women in their 30s to 40s. That's when the onset happens. So you know, there's a lot more women out there that suffer from this, that don't even realise they're suffering from it. It's not until they've pressured their doctors to do more tests that they find out they are suffering from this. It needs to be more widely recognised.
Joy Burnford: And it's tricky, isn't it? Because some people may not want to talk about these things at work as well. I mean, what's your feeling? Do you think women want to talk about these issues more? Or, you know, what is it that needs to change? I guess, is the question.
Julie Collins Powell: They definitely want to talk about it more. As you mentioned, at the beginning, not to be too gruesome about it. So it's finding that fine line of talking about periods or monthlies, or time of the month, it's finding the right naming convention for it and finding the right people to engage with. It's quite embarrassing to talk to a male about this. So you know, finding an ally that you work with, someone you know, to speak to them about it, because they'll be going through the same. I mean some people don't have periods, but can still suffer symptoms of periods. So it's finding the right balance to talk about it. But I mean, from some of the studies we've done over 57% of women do not want to talk about it, they will not talk about their periods in work. And that's so sad, because the majority of them, they will suffer. And they suffer in silence.
Joy Burnford: I suppose if they're not particularly suffering from it, then there's no need. I suppose it's looking at when there's something going on outside of work that's causing pain or making it uncomfortable?
Julie Collins Powell: Absolutely, I mean, if you're lucky enough not to suffer severe symptoms, and you can, you know, just breeze nicely through your monthly, it's brilliant. But I think that there's a lot of sympathetic ears out there that will also listen to you, even if they don't know or understand what you're going through.
Joy Burnford: And I think with the increase of flexible working, I think that can only just you know, can only help really with this because it means that people don't have to necessarily give a reason for working from home. For example, they can potentially manage the diary, pick a time to work from home, if that suits and not necessarily put things in their diary when they know they're going to be, you know, suffering.
Julie Collins Powell: That's it. Like the beginning, the first two days or first thing in the morning could be horrendous for women, I know it is for me. So I try not to book meetings before 10 o'clock, because I know that will be the worst time and I can get myself together and composed, I can prepare myself for when I was going into the office. And even now working from home. You know, I know I can sit here with a hot water bottle. And no one needs to see it even if my camera is on, which my current workplace we all put our cameras on for calls and meetings. But no one will know I've got a hot water bottle just to take the pain away from my face.
*** Joy Burnford: I do hope you’re enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a moment to tell you a little bit more about my reasons for doing this podcast. At My Confidence Matters our mission is to advance gender equality through building confidence and capability. I’m passionate about enabling every woman to have the confidence to progress in their career, and I love talking to, and sharing women’s stories to inspire others. This podcast forms a small part of what we do, and if you think there’s room for improvement in the way your organisation understands and manages the issues, barriers and obstacles that women face in the workplace, please do get in touch or tell your HR contact about us.
And don’t forget, if women’s health issues are impacting you at work, the highly experienced team of specialist fertility and women's health consultants, nurses and sonographers at The Surrey Park Clinic are offering you 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. ***
Joy Burnford: So I know period issues can affect every area of your life and wellbeing, including work. Can you talk a little bit about about that? So you know, how it affects your mental health, relationships, confidence, that sort of thing.
Julie Collins Powell: Yes, so a lot of women lack confidence, especially around career progress, because they know that their period can hold them back on a monthly basis. They also are aware the menopause is common as well so that's another factor that women don't want to pursue their career. And we can tend to suffer in silence. And then that will affect your personal relationships with your partner, with your friends, with your family. You know, a big thing is to talk about this with anyone who you can talk to about it. You know my best friends are the most important part of my life when I talk to them about periods. But my husband and my 22-year-old son also know all about this, because it gives them a greater understanding of if I'm sat crying, or if I'm a bit snappy. Each one of us has the app, a period tracing app, so they know, that’s why mums being a bit snappy today, you know, so it's just being open and honest with them, and let them have an understanding of what I'm going through. But it can be hard to talk. But even writing it down in a diary could help. It’s just putting it out there, it's getting it off your chest.
Joy Burnford: So we know also that our monthly cycle can affect our energy and productivity levels at different stages. So I'm interested to know if it's come up in your group conversations, or if you've got any personal experience of this. You know how productive you might feel at work and how does it affect your energy and productivity.
Julie Collins Powell: Yeah, it certainly decreases energy levels during your period and it did come up a lot in our group. We decided to spin a positive on it and say, well, what can we do to increase our energy, to increase our concentration, because we know we were all tracking by this point of when it was happening. So it'd be things like drink a pint of water, it can really help. It's so simple that you just don't think about it, but drink that pint of water. And it will give you some energy. Go and stand outside the front door, and just get a couple of minutes of fresh air. Because that can really help with your energy and your concentration. And just track and note, when you're feeling tired. You know, it could be, I don't know, if you want to do a couple of star jumps, if you feel confident to do that, while you're on your period, you know, just five minutes, that's all it takes to bring you back to focus, and to bring those energy levels back up. And a lot of ladies in our group tried this and it really helped them.
Joy Burnford: That’s brilliant. And I think it's basic things, isn't it eat, or drink some water? Get some fresh air? I mean, it's kind of, we can often go through a whole day and forget, actually we need to drink! Interesting. So as I said, earlier, periods are still a taboo subject. And we've talked a little bit about how to talk to line managers. Do you have any other advice around, you know, should women raise these issues at work? And how they can go about it? How should they approach their manager?
Julie Collins Powell: Absolutely, I know that a lot of workplaces now have a women's network or women's group. So you know, maybe start off with that, this is how we started off with a Women in Technology Group and broke away into our period and menopause group. So it's finding the right settings for you to raise it. And so you know, do we have a period policy, some workplaces do have period policies, regarding things like time off, help and advice where you can go to, flexible working, we introduced free sanitary products into the toilets in the office. So you know, it was like, there will always be something available to you. It can contain things like that, they are still relatively new. But I think if more people talk about it, and the more people do research, then they should become the norm. Because it is a condition.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant. So any other sort of practical, you're coming up with some amazing practical tips and advice here for women who are you know, managing their periods at work. So you've talked about and you know, an app, can you give me some names of some good apps that people could perhaps look at, or we put them on the show notes as well.
Julie Collins Powell: So if you go into your app store and type period diary, that's what I've got. It's got a flower on it. It's really good. My Fitbit also tracks so if anyone has a Fitbit or an iPhone, then that can help you track and you can put symptoms, how you’re feeling, you log the exact days, it tells you your cycles. So you know when things are varying. And it can also pop up if you set the notifications just to give you some tips and hints around your cycle. So yeah, there's quite a few of them out there.
Joy Burnford: Have you read the book ‘Period’ by Emma Barnett, it's a very good one, if you haven't, she presents Women’s Hour, it’s definitely worth a read for anybody. It's all about getting the word out there and passing it on to people to read the book as well. So looking back, you're obviously much more informed now and aware of how you manage your periods at work, but looking back, what's your one tip for women who are struggling to manage their periods at work?
Julie Collins Powell: Definitely track your periods and recognise the signs every month, I recognised that a week and a half before my period, I would get a massive headache. And like my jaw would hurt. So recognise that's going to happen exactly a week and a half before. So try not to book any meetings, try to be prepared with, you know, paracetamol. But I think the most important thing is to find someone to talk to about it, and get that message out and then get people more engaged talking about it. Because we suffer in silence too much around our periods. And we have been for centuries. But you know, let's start making the changes now.
Joy Burnford: And wouldn't it be wonderful if people listening to this podcast could go and then set up a period group in their businesses, that'd be amazing.
Julie Collins Powell: It would be phenomenal and it's such a worthy thing to do. It really is and it helps so much.
Joy Burnford: We may have people listening to this podcast who are say line managers or colleagues of people or friends of people who do suffer and they don't suffer themselves. You know, what do you think they can do to show support in the workplace to people who are, you know, what can they say?
Julie Collins Powell: Listen, when people want to talk to you about it, don't try and be an expert. Just listen to people, and then maybe offer them advice. Or what if you tried searching on the internet, if you tried to just offer them suggestions, because people will come to you for reassurance, they'll come to just get it off their chest. And they might not think of the obvious like the drink a pint of water to make you feel a bit more awake. It's the simple things that we tend to forget. Because we get all worried and confused in our own mind and stressed and anxious around, what can I do, and I can't see a way out. And especially when you're on your period, you start thinking that even more, so just listen, and be there for them and try and help them to progress wherever they want to within the company. If it's a period group, if it's a period policy, if it's just an awareness day, you know, just try and help them as much as you can.
Joy Burnford: Fantastic. And if any listeners want additional support, any sort of top tips on where they can go to find out more, you mentioned the period app.
Julie Collins Powell: I don't have any specific websites, but there's so much out there. And you'll find that a lot of websites say the same thing. And then it will stick into your head, and it will make it clear and it'll make you feel that this is normal. Because it is normal. It's happening every month if you're lucky enough.
Joy Burnford: Oh, exactly. And it's something we just often just, you know, we're so used to it. We just put up with it, don't we?
Julie Collins Powell: We do. We do, and we have done for many years, and it needs to stop. You know, we need to start talking about this more.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Julie, for your words of wisdom on everything to do with periods. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Julie Collins Powell: Thank you for having me.
Joy Burnford: And that’s it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and I’ll be back again soon with another Confidence Conversation. If you know anyone who might find this podcast useful, please do pass on the link and it would give me a real confidence boost if you could subscribe, rate and leave a written review (on Apple podcasts here or on Podchaser here). If you like what you’ve heard, sign up for updates where I’ll be sharing tips and notes from each episode and you can send in your ideas for future topics.
And remember you can get 10% off all initial consultations at The Surrey Park Clinic, when you reference this podcast. To book, get in touch at https://thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk/.
Thank you, and until the next time, bye for now.