• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, August 10, 2023

Menopause is slowly coming out of the corporate closet, with increasing recognition that the change-of-life condition affects not only women over 50 -- but also, perhaps surprisingly, U.S. businesses.

The Mayo Clinic, for one, estimates losses of $1.8 billion in annual worktime due to menopausal women leaving their jobs because of a lack of supportive policies.

Call this “The Hot Resignation,” says TBWA\Chiat\Day New York’s Health Collective in a pro bono awareness campaign just launched on behalf of MIPO (Menopause Information Pack for Organizations).

A key campaign element is the hashtag #HotResignation, to denote what the agency’s group creative director Lisa Savage calls the “shocking number of women who leave their jobs due to a lack of support.”

Savage tells Pharma & Health Insider that the campaign grew out of research the agency did on behalf of a menopause brand. “We discovered that the U.K. and Australia are talking much more openly about menopause and the value women in mid-life bring to the workforce,” she explains. “We knew it was time to spark a conversation in the U.S. and get business leaders to pay attention to what is ultimately a business issue, not just a women’s issue.”

MIPO, Savage says, was the “perfect partner” due to its prior overseas success overseas “in assisting companies in their desire to create supportive and enabling environments for menopausal women in the workplace.”

While the campaign was under development during the past year, Savage saw an increased openness in discussing menopause in the U.S.: “Celebrities were discussing menopause openly, companies were coming out with new treatments, and major news outlets were reporting on the lack of knowledge women have when they begin to face the changes associated with menopause.” But, she adds, “no one was commenting on the impact on the workplace. The topic of menopause among employers and employees was nonexistent.”

At least one U.S. company is already on the case.  Just a few days after “The Hot Resignation” launched last week, fertility benefits management company Progyny added specialized providers of menopause care to its employer benefits packages.

“Clients who elect to include this service of tailored perimenopause and menopause care will now be able to provide timely intervention for their workforce at critical stages of health transition,” Progyny said in its announcement, with its chief medical officer Dr. Janet Choi adding that “menopause symptoms have gone widely untreated and unrecognized, impacting the retention and well-being of women during critical stages of growth in their careers.”

Meanwhile, “The Hot Resignation”  has launched a website, downloadable gifs for LinkedIn channels, a downloadable toolkit, and a video series that TBWA/Chiat/Day NY plans to share on LinkedIn Learning. Materials encourage female employees “to speak up, share their experiences and create change,” the agency says.

LinkedIn will play a major role in driving employers to the campaign resources, due to what Savage calls “its relevance to women in the workforce.”

So the number of LinkedIn posts using #HotResignation will be a key measure of awareness success, she says, along with site visits.

“We boiled it down to these two metrics because the focus of the campaign from day one has always been to start a conversation surrounding menopause,” Savage tells us.

That said, though, she cites another metric that the agency is most focused on but one that’s “harder to track”: “the number of companies that begin to implement change after seeing this campaign.”

She concludes, “If we can play a role in convincing some of the most beloved and well-recognized companies in the U.S. to make their organizations work for women going through menopause, then we did our job.”