Need to know:
- To be truly gender-inclusive, employers cannot just focus on closing pay gaps, but making the workplace work for both men and women.
- In order to engage employees with the support available to them, employers should normalise gender-specific subjects that are often thought of as sensitive or taboo.
- Transgender benefits are applicable to a small proportion of a workforce, but are incredibly important to those individuals.
Gender inclusion in the workplace is growing in importance for all employers, whether due to building social awareness following movements such as #MeToo, legislation such as mandatory pay reporting, or the realisation that younger generations, their future employees, increasingly value social responsibility.
Issues such as the gender pay gap might seem easily solved by adjustments to bonus schemes, pay scales and recruitment efforts, but for an organisation to truly foster diversity and inclusion, it must make the workplace work, for both male and female employees.
This means that the issue of health and wellbeing, itself a rising agenda item, cannot be ignored, and its impact cannot be underestimated.
Healthcare benefits design
Employers must ensure that the health and wellbeing benefits they offer to employees are valuable and relevant, rather than simply a tick-box exercise.
There are many health conditions that are gender-specific, and employers would do well to have a clear understanding of the composition of their workforce, as well as the conditions that may affect them, and what benefits can be offered in support.
Chris Bailey, partner at Mercer, says: “There are some quite challenging areas of medicine that do impact people based on genetic make-up, such as gender and ethnicity. For example, black men are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer; healthcare there would be about prevention, screening, and education, not just treating the condition once it’s arrived.”
While it should ultimately be up to the employee whether to disclose their protected characteristics, gathering data can be a helpful method of ensuring that an employer's efforts are focused in the correct places. Being clear with staff about the beneficial end goal of gathering this information may help to ensure they are willing to engage.
Gender-specific health issues
A large part of an effective health and wellbeing strategy is education and communication, to help employees make use of the benefits available to them. Employers should consider targeting communications based on characteristics such as gender, reminding staff to be aware of risks such as breast and prostate cancer, and alerting them to key signs and symptoms.
This ensures that, while the benefits themselves might be more broad-reaching and less gender-specific, such as private medical insurance (PMI), male and female employees will understand their value in diverse and individual contexts.
Promotions and education sessions around gender-specific health issues can be modeled on a yearly calendar, utilising external events and campaigns as a base; for example, men's health issues could be a focus during November, following the lead of the Movember initiative.
This can be linked to employer brand and corporate social responsibility (CSR) via fundraising events that both provide staff with a chance to both learn more and raise money for a cause.
Managing menopause
A major health issue rising in awareness is the menopause, as the population of women in their 50s in the workforce continues to grow.
Employers may be nervous about addressing what is still considered a sensitive issue, but the more they do so, the easier it will be to support staff and ensure they feel welcome, comfortable and able to thrive at work. This has knock-on effects on both health and wellbeing and employee engagement.
Mridula Pore, co-founder and chief executive officer at health consultancy Peppy Health, says: “Physical and mental health are vulnerable [during this transition], and providing access to early support can prevent things cascading for the employee, and ultimately for the employer.
"It is in [the organisation's] interest to make sure the employee gets the help they need, is kept productive and is equipped to make the right decisions about how they work, in the best possible conditions."
Pore estimates that around 25% of women have no significant symptoms when going through the menopause, 25% experience debilitating symptoms, and the remaining 50% fall somewhere between the two. Symptoms are wide-ranging and can include memory loss, anxiety, insomnia, hot flushes, and hair loss.
There are a number of ways an employer can provide support, but any effort starts with education, says Pore. Organisations should, therefore, help managers and employees, regardless of gender, to understand the symptoms, treatments and relevant supports.
Ed Watling, employee benefits consultant, healthcare, at Mattioli Woods, adds: “The easiest thing is to hold a number of sessions, which could be face-to-face, webinars or online workshops. A lot of it is about signposting and education, and bringing to the workplace issues that in the past people have either tried to ignore or didn’t want to talk about.”
Once educated, staff will likely be more aware of the easy day-to-day adjustments, such as access to cool air and water, that can make a world of difference to wellbeing.
Another solution is to offer individual support, such as through a a telephone consultation with a menopause practitioner. “Women want to know options to manage it: medical options in terms of the different types of hormone replacement therapy that are out there, and non-medical options in terms of managing lifestyle and nutrition," says Pore.
Men's mental health
Mental health is an important issue across all social, gender and ethnic groups, although the issues at play may vary from one demographic to another. Employers should work to ensure that, regardless of protected characteristics, all employees feel safe in disclosing any mental wellbeing issues.
When considering gender, it is hard to ignore the pervasive belief that men are less willing to discuss mental wellbeing. Indeed, a September 2019 study by Babylon Health found that UK respondents feel that mental health is either not discussed enough by men (85%) or is outright stigmatised (71%), compared to 62% and 52% for women.
However, while they may be less comfortable discussing it in the workplace, men are making use of mental wellbeing benefits; data released by Personal Group and Health Assured in May 2019 found that just over half (55%) of the calls to employee assistance programme (EAP) counselling services were made by men.
Employers are well placed to continue the destigmatisation and normalisation of conversations around men's mental health.
Jayne Storey, chief people officer at Benenden Health, says: “It’s about creating the right environment where people feel they are able to talk openly about issues without fear of reprisal. It’s [about] being able to talk about it openly at every level, and then putting different initiatives in to help everybody understand it.”
Once this conversation has been facilitated and normalised, employers have at their disposal many benefits to support mental wellbeing. Services such as EAPs,which offer instant telephone support, coaching on mindfulness and resilience, and online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) tools, are all readily available in the workplace, explains Michelle Rae, head of propositions at Cigna.
“The most valuable piece is that fast access to care and getting early treatment,” she says. “Then there’s the preventative piece about giving people the wellbeing tools and encouragement. It has to be that culture from top leadership down to say, 'it’s okay to talk about mental health'.”
Transgender support
Transgender employees may account for a relatively small proportion of a workforce, but for an employee with gender dysphoria, workplace support and benefits to assist them on their treatment journey is of huge importance.
In October 2018, Mercer announced that benefits for the treatment gender dysphoria would become part of its PMI scheme; this includes cover for consultations, diagnosis, mental health and surgical treatment.
“There’s the ongoing assessment and monitoring, provision of advice, formal counselling, hormone advice, as well as looking at surgical readiness,” explains Bailey. “All these things are vital paths of treatment that don’t require any surgery or medical procedure there to incur costs. There is this whole package of benefits that can be put together that really support individuals through their personal journey.”
While many schemes offer similar initiatives, employers must be more proactive in calling for change, adds Bailey: “A lot of organisations have taken the default view of their medical insurer, rather than taking a proactive step. Engaging in discussion with the provider means that [an employer] can tweak benefits and design them how they wish.”
Creating a suite of healthcare and wellbeing benefits that is gender-inclusive can be as simple as offering support, education and signposts. Alternatively, it can be as in-depth as providing specific products to help individuals with diverse medical needs.
Whichever path they take, it is the responsibility of employers to normalise the discussion of gender-specific conditions as much as possible, by creating open lines of communication and raising awareness of the help that is available to employees.
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