Kate Wyatt, Partner in our Employment team spoke to Helen Puttick, Scottish Health Correspondent at the Times about the need for employers to be aware of the issues they may increasingly come across as the working population demographic changes.
Companies that fail to support staff through the menopause face a wave of compensation claims, employers have been told.
Manager are being warned not to discriminate against workers experiencing severe symptoms at a time when the number of women with jobs and careers in their fifties has soared.
The advice follows a case in Scotland in which Mandy Davies, a court officer who suffered serious menopausal health issues including heavy bleeding, anxiety and memory loss, won an unfair dis missal and disability discrimination claim against the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.
The service had begun an appeal against the judgment, which awarded more than £14,000 in lost pay, £5000 for “injury to feelings” and said that Ms Davies should be given her job back.
The PCS union said that if the service failed to reinstate Ms Davies it could be seen as a “green light to discriminate against” older women.
Kate Wyatt, an employment law partner at the legal firm Lindsays, said that more cases were likely.
“There is a lack of awareness of the impact of the menopause combined with a changing demographic in the working population so employers are going to come across this more often,” she said. “they need to get it right now otherwise they are going to struggle with claims.”
Ms Wyatt said that the menopause remained taboo in business. She said: “It is a bit like mental health issues ten years ago. Stigmatised. The kind of jokes you see about hot flushes and so on, it makes a very stressing environment for women. I think the legal protections can be much more progressively used.” She added: “For some women there are severe menopausal symptoms and it can amount to a disability for legal purposes.”
For two to three years Ms Davies suffered very heavy bleeding, which can lead to anaemia, tiredness and difficulty concentrating. Her line managers were aware and arranged for her to work in a court near a lavatory.
In February 2017 Ms Davies was also being treated for a bladder infection and took her medication to work. She had this and water on her desk in Court Room 23 of Glasgow Sheriff Court. Having left the room, she returned to find her jug emptied and two men in the public area drinking water. She became concerned, the judgment says, because she could not remember if she had diluted her medicine in the liquid. One of the men “launched into a rant” and asked “if he would grow ‘boobs’”.
The situation prompted a health and safety investigation. Ms Davies faced a disciplinary hearing which alleged that she “knowingly misled” the men into believing they had drunk water containing a drug and she was ultimately dismissed for “gross misconduct”.
According to the judgment, Ms Davies had an unblemished 20-year employment history with the service. The tribunal found her menopausal condition has caused her to be “confused and forgetful” about the medicine and said “there was a clear causal link between the claimant’s disability and the conduct”. It also identified flaws with the disciplinary process and said her dismissal was not “proportionate”.
Lynn Henderson, national officer for the PCS said: “It is worth stating that the Scottish government’s gender pay gap action plan…states that workplace practices should be improved for women workers during menopause. It’s astounding that a Scottish public body has firstly acted in this way and secondly refused to accept a tribunal decision for reinstatement.”
The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service said that staff wellbeing was “ of the highest importance”, that 66 per cent of its workforce were women, and that its policies “can effectively support menopausal women at work”.
This article featured in the Times on 8 July 2019.