Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
Surviving Menopause in the Workplace: What Every Woman Should Know
This week on Work It Like a Mum, I'm joined by the brilliant Anna Allerton—former sports journalist turned executive coach—who shares her deeply personal and professional journey through perimenopause and how it led to a powerful career pivot.
Anna now specialises in coaching professional women, particularly those navigating the challenges of menopause while juggling high-pressure careers. In this honest and inspiring conversation, she opens up about the debilitating symptoms that cost her a 20-year broadcasting career—and how those challenges now fuel her mission to help others thrive.
We Talk About:
- Anna’s transition from Sky Sports journalist to executive coach
- The impact of perimenopause on mental health and career
- Why workplaces need to become more menopause-friendly
- Logging symptoms, self-advocacy & navigating GPs
- Practical resources and tools (like the Balance App)
- Why creating safe, trusted spaces for women is essential
Key Takeaways:
✅ You’re not “just tired”—menopause can be disruptive and isolating, but help is out there
✅ Logging symptoms and asking the right questions can change everything
✅ Coaching creates space to be heard, challenged, and supported
✅ Women's health deserves to be taken seriously—in and out of the workplace
Why You Should Listen:
If you're a woman experiencing hormonal shifts or a leader wanting to better support women in your organisation, this episode is a must-listen. Anna’s story is a powerful reminder that with the right support, you can turn a personal struggle into a professional strength.
Show Links:
Connect with our host, Elizabeth Willetts here
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Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community. In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
Speaker 1:This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries, ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
Speaker 1:Now back to the show. Hello, welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast. Today I am chatting with Anna Allerton, who is the founder of Allerton Coaching and Consulting, and she is a leading executive coach and she coaches professional women, and predominantly business owners or women in the corporate sector, and has a particular interest in helping and supporting women going through the menopause and helping workplaces become more menopause friendly as well. Thank you so much, anna, for joining me. Thank you, I'm excited for our conversation. So what drew you into this type of work?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'll try and keep this as succinct as I can, liz, but my previous career was as a journalist. So I spent 20 years almost as a sports journalist at Sky. I was a TV producer and for a good chunk of that time I really specialised in women's sport, you know, back when it was totally uncalled to talk about women's sport. And then I was head of internal comms for Sky Corporate Affairs and then went into non-exec directing in, um, the sports governance world, um. But actually why am I an exec coach? Well, I experienced really debilitating symptoms of perimenopause when I was on my second maternity leave, um, at the age of 38, um, and it was, I won't sort of we're going to unpack some of it today in the conversation, but it over the course of a year. It cost me my career in journalism and my tv career, because the symptoms were just so um impactful on my life that I just couldn't carry on working yeah um, you know, I, I, um, I worked in a live tv environment.
Speaker 2:So you know, I say it with a slight grin on my face now because I think you know at the time it was really dreadful. But you know, live tv and brain fog just were a terrible combination. Some of the howlers that I made, because my brain just didn't give me permission to just, you know, be me, and you know it really disrupted things, you know, not only just as a young mum with two kids, but also my career. So why exec coaching? Well, I had, for many years in my broadcasting career, had my own exec coach and also, I think I was coaching a lot of the teams. I was in a number of different sort of senior roles and leadership roles and I ran a number of teams during my time there.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think you know I was really embracing the coaching competencies and coaching mindset. Um, so when I left Sky, the curiosity about it was actually too much that I just thought, right, I'm going to go and qualify, I'm going to go and do do the work. And so I went back to the books and studied for my qualification and you know, really, you know fleshed out, I guess, some of the things that I was perhaps playing at in my leadership role, with real theory and real consideration around the learning that I did and actually what really presented really quite early on in my course was that, you know, exec coaching gives people the space to explore themselves, to be heard with trust and safety and to think things through. And actually if you put that in front of a menopausal woman or a perimenopausal woman in the workplace alongside their careers, it can be so impactful.
Speaker 2:I sort of reflect on my experience and think what was missing I was. I was missing someone who was listening to me, but really listening, you know, not listening to answer but, you know, really absorbed in your journey and your experience. And I was also missing someone to challenge and hold me accountable, but with that sort of safe space and confidentiality around me. So I guess it was sort of triggered by my own lived experience. But also is a collection of my 20 years service in the corporate world coming together in this new chapter as an executive coach?
Speaker 1:So what were your symptoms then? If you don't mind me asking OK, how long have we got?
Speaker 2:No, I'm joking. I'm joking. I sometimes look at symptoms logs and go tick, tick, tick. My symptoms were predominantly psychological symptoms, so I mentioned the brain fog. So that how that sort of showed up for me was, you know, it wasn't just a case of I forgot where I left my keys or what have I done with my mobile phone. It was, you know, alarming. I forgot, I can't, couldn't recall colleagues, names, who I'd worked with for many, many years. I was booking guests to come on live TV programmes or to film segments in our studio and they would turn up and I didn't know who they were or what they were there for.
Speaker 2:It became quite alarming that I sort of after three months of returning to the workplace after my maternity leave was over, I came home and said to my husband we need to go and see a neurologist, there's something wrong with my brain, it's just not functioning. And I know lots of women listening to this who can relate when I say I felt like I was going mad. And I genuinely did. And I started, you know, almost obsessively, um, researching, you know, early onset for women in their 30s is it possible? Is, are there any cases of it, um, and the anxiety was another really big symptom and continues to be um. So you know that that awful kind of feeling of dread, um, yeah, I hate that feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know what you mean about that feeling. I always get it just from coming on my period and you're like I feel something bad, really bad's gonna happen today.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it's that and and not being able to. I heard Davina McCall once. She said that she heard her daughters really barely laugh and she recognized gosh. I haven't laughed like that myself for ages, so it's almost like you're just kind of surviving. You know, a loss of joy, loss of enthusiasm for things. You know the stuff that used to sort of make my heart sing and bring me to life. I just didn't, you know, find them as stimulating anymore. Um, you know insomnia. So 3am wake ups and then the anxiety would kick in. Um, I suffered heart palpitations, panic attacks. Um, you know the physical symptoms of sort of headaches, muscle and joint pain. Um, you know, and I think, is it a perimenopausal symptom?
Speaker 1:did you ever think it was like postnatal depression as well?
Speaker 2:I wondered, and I think that's why I didn't get treated so effectively. Um, a lot of doctors would say to me look, you know you're, you've got a two year old, you've got a newborn, we're just coming out of lockdown, you've got a stressful job. I got prescribed antidepressants over half a dozen times in a year and but I knew it wasn't that. I knew, you know. And when I was always challenging the GP to sort of say, well, look, will the antidepressants really deal with my heavy flooding, which is another physical symptom and very common in perimenopause, yeah, will it deal with my hair loss and my skin? That's a bit like a teenager again.
Speaker 2:Um, will it deal with my heart palpitations? Will it deal with my imposter syndrome, my loss confidence, my failure to recall names in a professional capacity, to to fulfill basic tasks in my job? And the answer was always no. But they always got really hung up on the anxiety, thought it's probably postnatal depression. But you know, and I think this is why we need to talk about this a lot more and really support and encourage women to educate themselves and learn to really advocate for themselves. Because I think my biggest reflection was I knew it wasn't that and I was so confident that it was perimenopause and and I just what research should you?
Speaker 1:don't because that's interesting, isn't it? Because there'll be, and I think, particularly as women having children later in life, then there is probably going to be this overlap, and how do you know whether it's postnatal depression or perimenopause?
Speaker 2:so I think the thing, um, that I became really focused on was logging my symptoms, because then, you know, I guess it's the journalist in me it feeds you back your personal data and it's something that I really explore with some of my clients as well around how is this showing up for you and what are your you know bespoke patterns of behavior, and I began using an app called the balance app, which is brilliant app. It's free. You can go on there and log your symptoms. It's sort of a sliding scale toggle on some of the responses and it collates and stores your data that you can then print or send to a gp as a pdf. So you know, I read a lot of books.
Speaker 2:I um, I started following and listening to lots of different people who were experts in this area and every time I looked at a symptom list or other people talking about feeling like they were going mad, I was thinking, okay, the more we all talk about this, the less isolated I feel, and and I think that there is a lot of power in that for women to then have the confidence to then say could it be this? Can we explore that? You know, and I think, probably reading lots and lots of books and books that doctors had written and experts in this space, was really how I you know, I didn't become a medical expert. I'm not a medical expert but it taught me and it empowered me to advocate for myself, um, and to ask the right questions in a in a gp conversation, and to really start to understand what was going on.
Speaker 2:So, I mean, it felt like a full-time job, you know, alongside everything else. You know it wasn't something that you could just do a quick google and then off you go this. You know symptoms logs take time. You know you need to do it over. Yeah, and and and and.
Speaker 1:I guess that process became quite tiring and exhausting as well yeah, because how many times did you end up going to the doctor then?
Speaker 2:I went 12 times across 10 months. Yeah and um, that's a lot, isn't it? My every time, and actually encouraged by one of the books that I read, um asked the gp did you do the menopause module at medical school? And I didn't encounter one gp in my practice who had. So they were very honest and said they hadn't, um, but many of them had been in general practice for a really long time, but I just felt like it was being dismissed and maybe that was because of a lack of awareness or understanding.
Speaker 2:Um, so in the end I had to go privately, which you know I don't think is right. You know that's not an option for the vast majority of women, and women's health needs to be treated a lot more seriously. Women's pain needs to be heard and, crucially, women need to be believed in all of this. You's pain needs to be heard and, crucially, women need to be believed in all of this. You know they need to be heard and they need to be believed. Um.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I saw a brilliant um BMS registered menopause specialist who treated my symptoms and the transformation was unreal. It really was, and I think I, and so I effectively lost a year of my life, that first year of my baby. Um, you know I've kind of come to terms with that now, but you know I feel privileged and lucky that I had that experience, when others, you know, it takes a lot longer and many, many years, because their symptoms are a lot more intricate or they've got other medical underlying issues that are going on. It's very complex, um. So you know, as much as it sounds really dreadful, I don't want people listening to this thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to be awful because actually I reflect on it now as a bit of a gift, because I wouldn't be here talking about it and I wouldn't be years into running my own exec coaching practice where I'm hearing women and supporting women, and I know that my work is helping women maintain their careers because they tell me all the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, probably their health. Really, you know, it's maintaining their careers and their health and well-being and lots of different things you mentioned books. What books did you?
Speaker 2:read. So, um, one of the books that was really valuable when I was in that process with um the gp was, um, a book published by penguin called I think it's just simply introduction to perimenopause and menopause, by dr newston. Yeah, so, um, there's actually, crucially, a chapter in there of how you can ask questions of your GP, which sounds so kind of obvious, doesn't it, when we talk about that, but actually just having the confidence that you're asking the right questions. So I found that really, really helpful and supportive. There is a brilliant woman she I'm trying to think of the name of it now she and Lara Brydon wrote about the hormones. It's almost like an encyclopedia of what's going on with your hormones. So, as an educational tool, I found it's almost like going back to basics of what's going on with you, because none of us were taught about this in the curriculum at school, were we? So, you know, I felt like I was on this real sort of educational journey and there's let me just have a quick look at my.
Speaker 1:I remember at school it was all like do not get pregnant it was don't have unprotected sex and fall pregnant, and that felt like that was like exactly exactly that. It's like this is your period now.
Speaker 2:Don't have unprotected sex and fall pregnant and that felt like. That was like exactly, exactly that. It's like this is your period, now don't get pregnant, and then, eventually, when we think you can get pregnant, and this is how you do it properly, and then after that you're on your own. And it's just ridiculous. You know, and even down to you know, I'm fortunate, I'm, um, quite a well educated person, but even just I needed reminders of where do I get my zinc from? Where do I get magnesium from? What's that actually going to do to my body? And you know it again, that contributes to not helpful, really is it because there's people that will have a lot?
Speaker 1:you know, women listen to this have endometriosis, polycystic ovary, you know, and actually to have no idea at that age, when you're getting a period you know, you know when you're taught sex education. Actually watch out for these symptoms because this could be a sign that something serious you need to go to the doctor. I mean it may have changed, but I do not remember any of that.
Speaker 2:None of it. And actually it's about empowering women with information so that they they are in control of their own journey and their own body. You know, and actually I think that will then really contribute to how there is still so much fear around the subjects of menopause, because, you know, often we hear negative stories, bad stories, but actually if we get to a point where we're celebrating at every point the female life cycle and how we can be empowered by it, at every single point, I think you know things will be so much better for women. I really do. And it's just, it's narrative, it's language and it's about accessibility to information is just so crucial.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you mentioned you went to the doctor privately and they treated you and your symptoms, you know, disappeared or got a lot better. How did they treat you? And then I guess, speaking to some of your clients, what's worked for them? How did they?
Speaker 2:treat you and then I guess, speaking to some of your clients, what's worked for them? Yeah, so my symptoms didn't disappear. This is the thing. It's not a case of kind of fixing things in this space, so I think it's more a case of what you can do to make life better and to really address some of the symptoms and start to sort of make changes in your life really start to sort of make changes in your life really. So my course of treatment was HRT not an option for everyone and not something that everyone wants to go on, but personally, for me, it really transformed how I was able to show up in my in my life really, and and it brought me back some happiness. You know I still suffer from insomnia. I have really awful flooding, you know, but actually I am able to manage and to cope with them and I have systems in place in order to make me feel better when some of them arise. And I guess that's really a bit of the mindset around coaching. I guess that's really a bit of the mindset around coaching.
Speaker 2:You know, exec coaching, you know, in its sort of purest form, is very much around creating space for exploration, to think out loud, to explore things that you know, sounding stuff out, even. But what is a challenge? And so you know, I guess in a simplistic fashion well, the challenge is my health, or how I'm feeling right now, and then the accountability is around the action. What can I do about it? And you know, and how are you going to do it and what do you need in order to succeed at that? Um, what support do you need?
Speaker 2:You know a lot of um, a lot of leadership, coaching talks about performance and resilience and productivity, and and actually my approach is is very different it's around the individual, because, you know, perimenopause and menopause is not a one size fits all. You know, we could sit in a room with 20 women, you know, all the same age and could all have a completely different experience. So it's about how we embrace that actually, and you know, I think in it there's kind of three pillars that I always explore at the beginning with clients, and it's around, you know, are you treating your symptoms? I personally don't think it's ethical for me to work with someone that that hasn't been treated by a GP or is in that process with a menopause expert, because you know they could invest so much energy and work in their professional lives, but it's going to fall down if their symptoms are not diagnosed and treated. And also, crucially, you know a lot of women might presume that they have perimenopause and menopause, but there may be something else going on, so it's absolutely that's a good point.
Speaker 2:You know as much as I had a pretty, um, you know, uncomfortable experience with a GP. There are some magnificent ones out there that are all over this um, and so I think you know treating your symptoms has to be really up there. Um, you know the second pillar is really around your holistic approaches to be really up there, and you know the second pillar is really around your holistic approaches to this. So it's things like your nutrition. I'm not a nutritionist, but it's around, you know, challenging yourself and holding accountability on what changes do I need to make? What education is there out there that I can absorb that is going to help me nourish my body, feed my hormones at this time? And there are lots of things and some brilliant experts out there that feed out some fantastic information.
Speaker 2:Um, and then it's really around this sort of overarching well-being pillar of you know. How are we respecting boundaries, how are we prioritizing sleep, how are we exercising self-compassion? That's something I really get stuck into with a lot of clients. You know how we're talking of and about ourselves, um, exercise yeah um, connectivity with nature, that's, that's something.
Speaker 2:That is really that that, you know, a non-negotiable for me, that that nature every day, and and actually building up that toolkit of what, what are my non-negotiables to really make me show up each day as the best version of myself today? And it's also around this self-compassion piece. You know, some days you're just going to drop a load of balls and things are just not going to work, and that is fine, you know. And I just don't think in a workplace environment that that we're quite there yet in terms of culture and inclusive cultures, embracing the ability to be a little bit nimble around the individual here. And I think once we can get to that point, you know, the workplace setting might work a lot more effectively for women to navigate some of this, because it's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot you know you're, you know, busy at work. You've got your kids. You've got your caring responsibilities. You've got your voluntary roles anything you do in the community, there's a lot asked of women and a lot I'm just thinking.
Speaker 1:You know we're recording this, aren't we? Right at the end of november, it's coming up to christmas and my phone is just being bombarded with whatsapps, bombarded and it's you know, and I get it. It's for you know, I get, it's important, but it's things like the christmas fair. Who can volunteer? These are the stores that need help. What time can you volunteer? We need to buy these presents for this teacher, this present for that teacher. These are all the sign up links who you know you were mentioning. You've got the nativity. We need to get these outfits. Where these outfits from?
Speaker 2:and that's just like the school stuff and then you've got, then you've got presents, you've got santa, you've got decorating, you've got food, you've got family.
Speaker 2:And I think this is the thing where you know, in its in its kind of basic um form, is creating a space for women to actually kind of say well, look, what about me in all of this? Yeah, it's not selfish at all. Actually it's. It's really smart to then say what do I need and what is my capacity here so I can donate to the fair, but I can't give my time because I'm really busy over here and that's okay, you know, and it's it's one of the symptoms I think that I recognize a lot and that a lot of women share in um my coaching practice around this kind of the people pleasing just dials up because I feel there's a lot of guilt that actually that women put on other women and I've noticed this in these whatsapp groups or if we can't do this, then we can't run it and the children will be so disappointed and yeah, I don't know if you get that.
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely, and it's. But then it's also the guilt that you put on yourself that you, you know, of course we want to show off and do absolutely everything we can, but then it's it's just, it's us as women that suffer and we're really depleted, and you know, and sometimes you just need a moment to just stop and think it all through, you know, because we're almost like on a conveyor belt, no wonder things get dropped, I mean I'm just thinking.
Speaker 1:No, I've had instances and I feel really still feel guilty about this where it was, um, when my eldest daughter started reception and she got invited to a party and I forgot to put the time in the in my diary and in my head I thought it was starting at 12. Some you know, and even now I'm like why. And in my head I thought it was starting at 12. Some you know, and even now I'm like why I thought it. So I thought it was starting at two, but I thought it was starting at two, I do not know.
Speaker 1:So we get in the car at quarter to two I look and it had started at 12 yeah, oh yes, I've done, and she was crying and I felt awful that we just missed, completely missed this party and it was the first like last part yeah, yeah, but it's how we carry the weight of that, isn't it that you know?
Speaker 2:I um, I forgot my daughter's book bag where she returns her books on a. Friday and gets her new set, and you know, came home and said um oh, mummy, you forgot my book bag yeah, I get that. It's my fault yeah, and so actually now I've said no, I haven't. You have to be accountable. You know your book bag is there.
Speaker 2:It is your job to take it um and and actually that's not me being a bad parent, I think you know, on one hand it's teaching her a bit of responsibility, but it's also about saying I'm not going to carry the guilt of that you know, I can't do everything.
Speaker 2:Because, also for professional women, you know, alongside all of this, you know we've got to really manage the possibility of burnout here. So many women, when you say the word burnout, can identify with maybe how that feels or what it might look like for them. And, and you know, also dialing down stress. Certainly, you know, during perimenopause and menopause we need to start to manage our stress levels and and this is where the accountability piece comes in, which feels sometimes a bit unkind of saying, right, well, you have to be accountable for that. But you know, if you're recognizing that stress is really starting to impact your life, it's around sort of thinking through what can I do about that? How does that sound, how does it look? How do I manage that? How do I feel about that? Um, because actually you're taking positive steps for you and I think you know sometimes we've just got to give ourselves permission, haven't we? Not just as individuals, but women supporting women.
Speaker 2:Okay, you can't do the christmas fair, that's fine yeah yeah, um, because we all have lots of other stuff going on. And you know, it's that classic thing, isn't it of like the giant bubble and the tiny dot, that's all we see of someone's life, and there's all this other stuff going on. So, yeah, it's, it's a crazy time of year, that is for sure, it's a crazy time so you mentioned that you had.
Speaker 1:You know, due to symptoms, you left work um how you know what would have, what maybe would have made you stay? How can workplaces be more supportive?
Speaker 2:so I think, um, my workplace was actually very good. I was really fortunate that I had a very supportive line manager who just really allowed me to be me and created space to listen and I think probably was quite hugely frustrated personally that there wasn't anything really that that person could do, because we both recognised that actually I needed to be treated by a medical professional yeah but so I think you know I'm fortunate and I'm very grateful for that, because I think that kept me in that job for a year, whereas after the three month mark I probably would would have walked.
Speaker 2:So what can workplaces do? Look, I think opening up this conversation okay, for many people it's an awkward conversation to have, but I think there's lots of things that we have to recognise here and a lot of it is just in data. So if I can just share a little bit of data which might help people understand why because, quite rightly, when I go into workplaces and talk about this, a lot of people say, oh, is this just the latest box ticking? Is this just sort of a fad that we're just celebrities are talking about it? We have to talk about it now, curiosity.
Speaker 2:But I would say that the reason why it is different now than it was 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago is that women over 50 make up the fastest growing demographic of the UK workforce and you know, and there's a lot of women in their 50s who are returning to the workplace after career breaks or time out to raise their families. Whatever the situation is, women have a huge talent pool. I mean, you know this better than anyone, liz. You know they've got even. You know, even going on maternity leave and raising children feeds you talent and transferable skills that women need, you know, to be able to give themselves permission to see that through a different lens. And so, actually, the workplace is better for women in it. So I think Forbes say and this is a data set, that it's not new, but it's been reaffirmed with fresh data in the last year or so but 21% of organizations with women in leadership roles will be more profitable than their competitors. So it's a no-brainer. But one in 10 women are leaving the workplace because of perimenopause or menopause, and that's lots of reasons. You can speculate around, whether it's the employer, the culture or failure to be treated. There's lots of different reasons and, again, it's not a one size fits all. But workplaces need to recognise that. Why, and not bury their head in the sand? Leadership needs to embrace vulnerable leadership, vulnerable leadership, and that's what a lot of the coaching with with leaders, and particularly male leaders.
Speaker 2:Um, I explore around saying I don't know anything about this, but you know what? Let's all learn together, let's all um, let's all go on that journey together. This is why it's important to our organization because it goes beyond the person that you sit next to in your own office. You know you've got your customers, you've got your in your own office. You know you've got your customers, you've got your audience, you've got your stakeholders, you've got your community, you've got your suppliers. You know so much this can impact and and you know if it doesn't impact you as an individual indirectly supporting someone, um, either in the home, in a friendship group or in the workplace, you become a stakeholder in this.
Speaker 2:So you know, I'm I'm always really keen that we move on from talking about male allies. You know everyone is a stakeholder in this conversation and I think some of the challenges in the workplace are sometimes with female leadership. You know responses. You know women have been going through this for generations. And why do we need to talk about this now? As soon as you present the data, it's almost like a bit of a light bulb moment of oh, okay. And then you get other responses which is look, it really wasn't that bad for me. So I don't get what all the fuss is about. Yeah, so it's about that ability to coach through individuals and you know, let's not just say that your experience of menopause is going to be the one that all of us are going to experience essentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's like that, isn't it? It's realizing everyone's life is different and actually trying to pull out that empathy, maybe yeah, and I think that there are benchmarks that a lot of the workplace has.
Speaker 2:You know, they've been on a journey of exploration around opening the conversation around mental health, for example, you know, and I think that that that has is evidenced by the number of women who are self-serving, um, because of their menopause symptoms, and they're actually saying it's for anxiety and depression, because they feel that that will be treated with more safety or more trust than for saying it's for menopause. And I think it's about language and optics around education. You know, I think historically there's been a lot of stigma and stereotype around women going through menopause. You know, and my experience it, you know, it is not unique. There are many, many women that contact me when I talk about this and say, yeah, this is me in my 30s and I've got young children. Yet a lot of the narrative is around women in their 50s with, um, empty nests. You know, we've got to start accepting that this is covering generations and lots of different decades of a woman's lifespan, and I think, you know, the workplace as well.
Speaker 2:As opening up the conversation, I think they need to be a lot more progressive and disruptive really, around, you know, simply doing a lunch and learn or running a workshop once a year is not going to cut it. You know women see through it and also it's not going to shift the dial here. So it's around you, you know, really reflecting on your approach to it, your commitment to it, and you know inevitably these things take investment of time and money. You know you're taking people on a journey, but I think you know that's where I kind of try and fit in to the overall picture of you. Know you can, you can spend tens of thousands of pounds doing, you know, modules and online webinars and things like that, but actually what, what? What are you doing? What are you providing for that woman who is? I'm going to leave. I can't do this any longer. What support are you doing in that moment? Or actually, what are you then putting in place before it even gets to that point?
Speaker 2:yeah, because it's definitely cheaper to do the intervention than it is to replace somebody absolutely, and this is this is the thing that a lot of my clients completely um are engaged with the fact that they could get me in to work with someone across a number of sessions, to coach, to just listen to them, which you know. Having that empathy and having someone on the end of a call who has lived it and breathed it, is hugely transformative. Or you could wait for that person to leave and I think the research is something like it costs for any woman that's on a salary of over, I think, 30 grand. It costs 25 grand plus to replace and recruit in for that vacancy. I mean, it's just a no brainer, it doesn't need to get to that point. And women aren't that dispensable, disposable, you know, we can't just sort of say, oh well, if she leaves, we'll get another one in no we can't have this amazing yeah, it's no.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make business sense, does it to have that?
Speaker 2:no business sense at all none at all, and those women are either your current leaders or typically on the cusp of being your senior leadership team. And so you know, I guess my approach to my coaching model is called Work Smarter in Menopause and it's really inspired by a lot of the work that I did from women's sport. So you know what we started to see once we we started seeing the professionalisation of women's sport. So you know football, cricket, rugby, hockey, netball, women being paid a salary to play. With that came the resources and the infrastructure around professional sports. So you've got, you know, physios, you've got nutritionists, you've got doctors, all of these things. And you know we can use Chelsea women as an example, whose coach was Emma Hayes.
Speaker 2:Back then she quite quickly and quite sort of very early recognised I need to train my squad individually here around their menstrual cycles. Because you know we can't be doing impact, high impact training and risk and injury. Here We've got to. We've got to tailor a training. Risk and injury here we've got to. We've got to tailor a training. You know she's still showing up to work every day in training and and fulfilling her duties as an employer. We need to do it to keep her longevity going. Let's do it. Let's train smart around um her menstrual cycle and her hormonal health, and then what you start to then see from data is that severe and longer term injuries start to sort of be reduced. So you don't have your top striker sat um laid up for months on end with an injury that could have been prevented, and so I'm sort of adopting that mindset of you know you can train smarter as a professional athlete. Why can't we transfer some of that mindset across and work smarter as professionals? And we can do it as women. But actually we need our employers, we need our you know, our managers. We need our leadership to really embrace that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is what we're talking about marginal gains, almost. You know you could argue. Emma hayes is putting in a lot of investment and time behind the scenes to train her squad better so that she keeps them playing, and then she wins more trophies. Everyone gains, don't they? Yeah, the individual isn't injured, her career thrives, they go on, they win, the investment comes back in, the sponsorship keeps going. The whole thing is really really productive, based around performance. So it's about kind of saying, well, how do you get that individual woman to perform?
Speaker 1:but well, what would you? Yeah, because you know I did a podcast with a hormonal coach it was about this time last year actually and she was saying that, um, she works with, like you, business owners and corporate women and business owners that have more control over their schedule. For example, if their cycle is regular, would, um, would maybe schedule admin days when they knew they were due on and like big, important client pitches in the first half of their cycle and, like you know, less stressful work in the second half.
Speaker 2:Um, but it was sort of a little bit harder to translate that maybe into a corporate setting where you didn't have control of your day, but it sort of it made sense to me and I could you know understand how you could like work like that um and this is where I really advocate for logging your symptoms, not just because I did it and I continue to do it, but because it feeds you data. Yeah, so you know, you know, um, you know, for example, I know when my anxiety really peaks, so I'm actually empowered to prepare for that. I know it's going to pass, so I'm not going to completely freak out when it happens which is what I did before and just feel like everything was falling down. I give myself some grace in those moments and I'm really careful what I put into place and, to your point, that's a lot easier. I run my own business. Yeah, so I'm the master of that in the corporate setting.
Speaker 2:It's not always easy, but there are things you can do around. You know where am I at my most productive in the day, and that's when I do my meetings. You know, in three months time we've got a pitch for a really big piece of work. How is that looking? Where am I in the state of things here, and what do I need in order to really thrive at that time? If there's something that presents this challenge and you know there's lots and lots of stuff you can do as an individual but equally, it's around how receptive your organization is to that. Yeah, it's also about confidence and trust and when you're communicating these things, that they are understood. This is why we need to open this conversation, because we need to. You know, I guess you could explain it as a bottom line mentality to leadership, or you could just say it's what clever, smart people are doing. You know you're absolutely extracting the best from people. So, you know, also just using lived experience and storytelling, it won't surprise you.
Speaker 2:As a tv producer, I've made a living of telling stories. Yeah, because I think it makes it relatable. And you know, it's about sort of saying, oh, anna's working from home today and rather than it being like she's just putting her feet up because she's got her period or something like that, it's about kind of going great, that's when she's going to get on with her admin, she's going to go through her inbox, she's going to do this. Actually, just, you know, not micromanaging the whole thing and actually trusting that that person is showing up for work and doing the thing that they need to do, but actually it's around what's going to extract their best performance in that, and I think you know where it's working really effectively with my clients is that they are seeing performance. They are seeing um, no shift in um, you know, no dip in any kind of productivity or anything. They they're seeing better communication and trust and, over the long term, they're seeing increased loyalty. It just makes complete sense.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So how can people work with you? Then you know, if there's a business maybe that wants you know, use an intervention, or if there's an individual listening to this that thinks they could benefit from your support, where's the best places?
Speaker 2:so I guess, my LinkedIn or my website. So it's Anna Allerton on LinkedIn and um allertoncoachingcom. Um is my website and you can find out a little bit more about me there, um, and you know I run a number of coaching workshops to really use some of the coaching competencies which really works so effectively in the workplace environment. To open up and explore this conversation, I do sort of a leadership spotlight coaching workshop also, which really addresses those key components of vulnerability and exploring how things are showing up for people and validating that their opinion counts too in order for us to acknowledge and embrace it to find a path forward. But my coaching model is very action-led. So you know a lot of different organizations will have me in, they'll add me to their coaching roster because there's not many people out there.
Speaker 2:Lots of people do leadership coaching, career coaching, but actually who can we put in front of Anna? Who they both? They're both understanding each other's lived experience, but that you know. I think the other thing to to explore just for a moment around exec coaching is that exec coaches don't tell you what to do, they don't advise, they don't recommend, they don't actually have an opinion. Their job is very much to help um, deepen your own exploration so that you can take action for yourself as an individual, because you know I think that you know it's around using creative interventions and different explorations so that you're really self-aware and then therefore empowered to then take action that's really authentic to you, not just, oh, I did an hour session with a coach and she said I should do this.
Speaker 2:I don't think that that's going to really reinforce really strong foundations and that's what you know, makes you feel quite uncomfortable actually exactly because then it's saying well, you're not listening to me, you're not hearing me, my reality and I think that's that's the really key component, because, you know, I think, um, the word coach kind of throws up a lot of confusion right now.
Speaker 2:So I think that's why I really wanted to address that, because you, you can get menopause coaches and there are some absolutely brilliant women that are menopause coaches, but they're a lot more hopefully trained and qualified to give more kind of medical guidance and advice.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not sure that anything quite beats a GP or a medical expert, but you know, they're set up to advise and support in a different way, whereas exec coaching is very much around the workplace and leadership, management, the individual, and you know it is not productive for an exec coach to say, if you do this, this will happen, because it's got to be around their reality and authenticity.
Speaker 2:And I think that's why I love it so much, because you know you can sit there and you know, and my job as a coach is, you know is is to really maybe see what isn't being said and to really peel back those layers of the onion so that we really understand what's going on here, in order for that person to then figure out the next steps or how to move around a blockage or acceptance, around something that is being presented, and sometimes you just get these amazing aha moments that you just get the privilege of witnessing. You know, I haven't done the work the client has and and it can be, um, really empowering for people to sort of actually say I'm going to do this for myself, on my terms yeah, yeah, absolutely well, we'll put all your links in the show notes.
Speaker 1:It's been a real pleasure. I've really really enjoyed our conversation. Anna, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site investing in women on linkedin, facebook and instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.