Today we’re publishing the evaluation of Menopause@Work, a programme we co-led with Brighton & Hove City Council to support menopause awareness and action in small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs).

Funded by the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Fund as part of the Women’s Health Strategy for England, the project’s aim was to give SMEs the knowledge, confidence, and tools to better support staff through menopause. Through a mix of live events, online resources, and practical learning modules, we engaged nearly 500 individuals, most from SME organisations that we set out to support. 

Our intention from the start was to bring expertise out of the clinic and into the everyday situations people live and work in, blending it with local knowledge and community insight to create something truly practical and grounded. 

With the final evaluation now complete, we’re sharing what we’ve learned. 

Key insights from the Menopause at Work report

Online learning, convenient and helpful, alone wasn’t enough. What people valued most were the live events: spaces to talk, connect, and feel heard. 

The programme helped individuals grow in confidence and knowledge, and in many cases led to practical changes at work. But lasting, systemic change remains slow, especially where leadership support or resource is lacking. 

If workplaces want to truly support staff through menopause, they need to move beyond individual action and bring leadership along with them. 

Grounding menopause support in the real world

One of the programme’s core ambitions was to bring clinically informed expertise into the everyday spaces where people live and work. The evaluation shows this mattered. Participants responded most positively to live, discussion-based events that created safe, relatable spaces. By combining expert knowledge with local understanding and real-world context, the programme helped translate information into action. Small, practical changes, like adjusting uniforms or offering flexible breaks, came directly from these conversations. 

We hope this evaluation offers valuable insight for others working to create more supportive, inclusive workplaces. 

Download the full Menopause@Work evaluation here.

If you’re working to make your organisation more menopause-friendly, or curious about how we co-design our projects and services, we’d love to talk: drop us a line at Collab@hereweare.co.uk  

• Menopause@Work hosted their very first in person networking breakfast event which welcomed 25 people and was a fantastic success!
• We were really proud to be short listed for 6 awards this year. Including ‘Innovation of the Year’ for the UK Social Enterprise Awards and ‘Most Promising Pilot’ for the HTN Awards 2023.
• In November celebrated the incredible hard work of our Vax team over the last three years, as our formal involvement in the COVID Vaccine primary care collaboration in Brighton & Hove came to a close.
• We launched our new brand!

Thank you to everyone at Here for all their hard work this year. We’re really excited to see what amazing things we achieve together in 2024!