He explains: “Perimenopause and menopause are interchangeable. Menopause is literally that moment in time when you have gone for twelve months without a period. But perimenopause can go on for ten years before that, and that’s when usually your symptoms are presenting, changing and getting worse. By the time the periods actually stop, the hormones are beginning to calm down. It’s those years beforehand, where one minute you could be going up in a lift to deliver a presentation and by the time you get to the floor, you can’t remember your own name. The average age for that to start is about 46, but it can start for women in their late 30s. Often women are wandering around desperately trying to disguise anything is happening, terrified they’re beginning to get Alzheimer’s, or that they’re depressed, or burned out.”

Women are quitting their jobs because of menopause – that’s the bottom line. Gaele Lalahy, COO of menopause support app, Balance, which works with corporates to bring understanding and training to the workplace. She says: “I have seen many of my colleagues, around 45, 50, just leave, just go. And I realised that’s why I never had any role models. Lots of companies have launched female leadership programmes but nobody seems to be looking at the why. One of the reasons is, of course, lack of understanding of menopause and the impact it has on women leaving the workforce, or going part-time, but they feel they can’t live their lives any more.”

And that’s where HR can come in.

A new white paper Pause for Thought: Reflecting on Menopause and the Workplace, has shed new light on women’s experiences. Using a combination of desk research and quantitative research 2000 quantitative online surveys were undertaken, of which 304 were with working women aged over 45.

And one of the key themes highlighted was the ‘confusion and lack of understanding about what menopause means for women in the workplace’.

It’s easy to think of a menopausal woman in the workplace needing to go to meetings, or be working from home, sat a desk, but of course, women are experiencing peri and menopause across all different sectors. From those who are sitting in boardrooms, through to those who are customer-facing in retail, or service-based jobs such as nursing, as well as those who work in leadership, managing teams, driving vehicles or running their own business, small or large.

“Our whole ethos is about supporting real women,” says Nigel. “We’ve worked hard to exploit the narrative and reassure women HRT is a safe option. The reality is, any decent menopause doctor or specialist will tell you that you’ll only get the most out of your HRT if you review your lifestyle at the same time, making some tweaks and adjustments for this new body. Because that’s what this is – a totally different body to the one that the woman had previously. Oestrogen is involved with every cell in the body. As oestrogen levels drop – and they’ll never come back to the levels they were previously, even with HRT – everything needs now, a new approach. You’re not able to spin the plates in the way you did previously. Something has to give, or you are going to give.”