How to introduce menopause benefits to the workplace

Want to better support women's health? Don't shy away from the typically-taboo topics — like menopause. 

According to a 2021 survey from telehealth company Gennev, 99% of women experiencing menopause don't specifically have supportive benefits at work. Software company Nvidia didn't want its employees to be a part of that majority, especially when its women's employee resource group came to leadership asking questions about getting menopausal support. 

"When we went back to our carriers they essentially told us that employees' providers were the ones that needed to assist them with health issues," says Denise Rosa, benefits manager at Nvidia. "We dug a little bit deeper and figured that it would be best for us to find that third-party solution that would be able to support our employees and meet them where they are in whatever stage of life they're in." 

Read more: Why menopause support is a trending workplace benefit

At the time, Nvidia already had a number of progressive benefits in place, such as family planning support for adoption and surrogacy assistance. Menopause was a blind spot but they knew that in order to do the roll-out right, they needed an experienced partner company that could address all of their workforce's needs in one fell swoop.    

Peppy, a U.K.-based digital health platform, emerged as that holistic provider, and Nvidia cemented a partnership in 2021. Peppy supports fertility care, men's health, gender-inclusive solutions and menopause support.

"We partner with companies who want to address this issue," says Max Landry, CEO and co-founder of Peppy. "These are companies that really telegraph to their employees that they genuinely care about things like closing the gender pay gap and getting more senior women in leadership positions."

As many as 40% of menopausal women say their symptoms — which include hot flashes, brain fog and mood changes — interfere with their work performance or productivity weekly, according to a survey from Biote. Nearly one in five have even quit or considered quitting because of their symptoms, making addressing menopause a retention issue just as much as a health and wellness concern. 

Read more: Why menopause benefits are the next step in supporting reproductive health

"One of our other clients thought she was going mad when she started going through menopause and was on the verge of quitting her job," Landry says. "And the reason she went through that horrible process is because she had no information about what was going on. The symptoms were so bad she thought she was suffering from a form of dementia, whereas if she'd understood that she was actually experiencing brain fog due to the decrease in estrogen, she could have found help earlier." 

Through the partnership Nvidia employees and their families gained access to the Peppy app, which offered opportunities to communicate with experts via chat, information and resource programs, videos, podcasts and one-on-one consultations with experts. 

"Our employees felt like they had been heard," Rosa recalls. "They all had positive experiences with the benefit and felt that it had worked for them. And it doesn't matter if it had just helped one person or if it had helped several. Our main goal was to support all employees so that they could do their best work." 

To receive that kind of feedback isn't new to the Peppy team, Landry says. While they don't work directly with the employees themselves, they often hear the responses from satisfied employers. Often, it's not just regarding employees in the menopausal age demographic — even younger women and individuals with periods that are nowhere near experiencing menopause symptoms often express their gratitude for the addition.

Read more: Another reason employees want to work from home: menopause

"Younger people in the business want to work in a company that supports the older generation in a way that I think is respectful," Landry says. "Why? Because they want to know what's coming down the line for them."

That was Nvidia's greatest hope: to provide a resource that could become a staple of the company's inclusivity and commitment to holistic care and wellness. 

"It's really important that we support our employees wherever they're at and that we take their feedback into consideration," Rosa says. "And that we then support them in any way that we can and that we listen. That's just our culture."