Insights into white collar women’s workplace experiences during menopause-a human resource management perspective

Abstract

Menopause has been studied widely in medicine and health sciences, but research on management, especially in Türkiye seems to be extremely limited. This creates a data gap which leads to corporate and managerial ignorance of menopausal women’s experiences at the workplace. The current study focused on white collar menopausal women’s workplace experiences. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, a qualitative design and in-depth interview method were used. Nine participants volunteered for the study and as the data analysis showed saturation, no more interviews were conducted. Findings indicate that women have multiple hardships at the office during menopause and flexible working conditions and support of female colleagues and managers may facilitate their experiences. Furthermore, organizations should provide flexible working alternatives, trainings, adjusted offices and policy change especially in performance and compensation management in support of mid-life menopausal working women.