Let's start with one woman.

One experienced woman at £30,000. Think about what she carries. The client she has held for six years. The team she steadied through a restructure. The unwritten knowledge that never makes it into a handover document. The psychological safety she creates just by being in the room.

Now think about what it costs to replace her.

You know your own numbers. Take the salary. Add recruitment, onboarding, the time it takes for someone new to reach the same level of trust and output. Multiply that by one in ten, because according to the Fawcett Society, that is how many women have already left their jobs because of unmanaged menopause symptoms.

Do the maths for your organisation. It is not a small number, and it only accounts for those who leave. Then there are those who stay. Who show up every day but are running on a fraction of their capacity. The meeting where she says less than she knows. The decision she doesn't push back on because she doesn't have the energy today. That cost is harder to measure, and it is real.

Now multiply her the other way.

What if she stayed? Two women. Three. Four. What does that organisation look like? What decisions get made differently? What conversations happen that wouldn't have happened before?

What I know from the inside

I spent years in the maritime industry. Across that time, one thing remained constant: The attracting and retaining women to maritime was always a challenge. The industry talked about it. Worked on it. Genuinely wanted to change it.

But there was a gap nobody named, sitting right in the years when the women maritime had invested in were at the height of their careers.

What the room told me 

At recent Spinnaker webinars, maritime HR and leadership professionals completed my Menopause Readiness Scorecard. The average readiness score across attendees was 31%.

88% said managers had received zero menopause training in the last two to three years. 75% said HR does not collect any data or feedback on menopause support. Nearly two thirds said support is either inaccessible or non-existent for remote and at-sea staff.

When asked what one thing they would change in the next three months, the answers were: openness, get started, training, flexible working, wellness workshops.

Not a lack of will. A lack of a starting point.

The starting point is closer than you think

The women in your organisation have already been showing up. The question is whether you're ready to show up for them.

Is your organisation ready? From April 2026, in the UK, menopause action plans become voluntary for larger employers - mandatory in 2027. The organisations that move now will be ahead of compliance and ahead of the market. 

Book a 30-minute Executive Preview Call and let's look at where you stand and what the right first step looks like for your organisation.