The following is a transcript of our podcast conversation with Jill Angelo and Devon McGill. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Sarah Wilkins
Hello and welcome to Humans Beyond Resources, an HR podcast by Reverb where we cover topics from culture to compliance. Reverb believes that every decision a leader makes reverberates throughout the organization, from hiring your first employee to training your entire workforce. We believe in building healthy, inclusive cultures that engage your team. I’m your host, Sarah Wilkins. So today we’re speaking with Jill Angelo, founder and CEO at Gennev and Devon McGill, director of partnerships leading menopause in the workplace. Gennev is the number one virtual care provider for women in menopause. I’m really excited to talk to them today about how organizations can better support their employees going through menopause in an effort to create a more inclusive workplace. Welcome Jill and Devon.
Jill Angelo
Great to be here, thanks Sarah.
Sarah Wilkins
Really want to start by maybe each of you sharing a little bit more about yourselves and why you started Gennev.
Jill Angelo
I’m Jill Angelo. I’m the CEO and president and founder of Gennev. Started the company about seven years ago after a long time career in technology. And I started Gennev really for two reasons. Number one, I have always really been passionate about women and girls development. That’s where I’ve spent my time philanthropically. And when I learned how underserved women in menopause were in their care, it really, really teed up maybe this is the next thing I should be doing with my career. Second reason, while I wasn’t in peri -menopause when I started the company, I certainly am now. So the company’s near and dear to my heart literally and health and really love what we do every day.
Devon McGill
Yeah, so I’m Devon McGill, Director of Partnerships here at Gennev. My background is in benefits administration and strategy on the employer side. And so I work for organizations like Path, Expedia. Most recently I worked at Amazon. And Gennev was super interesting to me just from a women’s health equity perspective, working in benefits. I really understood that it was an underserved market and continues to be an underserved market. In my early days in benefits, it was the start of the infertility benefits where a lot of people were afraid to ask for them. A lot of people felt like that was something they couldn’t ask for, but it was such a huge problem. And just a few loud voices really made us look at the benefits that we offer and support those women who are going through fertility journeys because it’s scary and it’s difficult and it’s very expensive. And so I really love Gennev to kind of meet the women where they’re at in their journey because menopause is in that same space of women being afraid to speak up for what it is that they need and organizations really needing to step up and fill that space.
Sarah Wilkins
Thank you both so much for your passion and kind of supporting women across their life cycle. And yeah, as I was preparing for this, I was thinking like this is probably an area that people at work don’t wanna bring up, right? And so that probably leads to all the things that I read in your white paper. So to kind of dive in, menopause is often overlooked in the workplace. If you can share more about the reasons, we should all be paying more attention to menopause in the workplace.
Devon McGill
So Bank of America recently released a really important groundbreaking study about menopause in the workplace. And one of their findings was that 42 % of women surveyed said menopause symptoms were disruptive to their work life. And that’s a huge percentage of women. And women, the stories that I hear when I say, I work for a virtual menopause company, I become that safe space where people can really tell me their stories and really allow me into how menopause is impacting their life. And so many of the stories that I hear are about, I had brain fog, I couldn’t sleep. And what my employer didn’t know is that I could barely even get out of bed. And so showing up to work and being my best self, it just wasn’t happening. And so presenteeism was a huge issue. And I just keep hearing those stories over and over and over again. And what workplaces really need to understand is that this is not just a point solution. This is not just specialty care. 50 % of their population will go through menopause and 20 % are in some stage of menopause right now. And so this is really important for health equity in order for women to be able to get the care that they need for exactly what they’re going through at the time in which they’re going through it. But if that resource isn’t there and that conversation is not brought up in the workplace, women don’t wanna talk about it. You don’t wanna talk about that you’re not sleeping. You don’t wanna talk about that you’re having a really hard time showing up because then you’re sidelined. Now you’re old. Now you’re no longer relevant. And that’s just not true. And so women just really need that menopause care, the right care at the right time in order for them to be able to show up at work. And that requires lots of different ways that workplaces can support that in actual menopause benefits, but also just in the way that they talk about it, just in the way that they train, just in the way that they open up those conversations to allow for women to really bring their full true selves to work. So it’s super important. I’m super passionate about it. It really meets a lot of those diversity, equity and inclusion goals that workplaces talk about, about we need to see at least 50 % of our leadership positions be women. Well, who do you think those women are? Those women are in perimenopause and menopause and post -menopause, and they’re struggling with hot flashes and sleepless nights and low libido, and they’re never gonna tell their bosses that. And so without the right kind of care and that surrounding support through things like employee resource groups or support groups, or even just that one person who can be your ally to say, I can see you’re struggling today. Let me help you. Let me speak up for you. Without all of that, women are just doing what they’re doing today and they’re suffering and there’s no reason for it and there’s no need for it. So workplace is really, it’s time. It’s time for them to step up and support this population in a really meaningful way.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, I mean, all of those things you pointed to, right? Or how to support employees and health equity. I’m curious too, with the return to office, for some people, I imagine that’s been hard on this population as well, right? Because if you’re at home, maybe you have a little bit more flexibility to manage symptoms or get a little more rest if you’re having trouble sleeping at night. Have you heard anything or seen anything anecdotally on that?
Devon McGill
Yeah, absolutely. How do you show up to work when you don’t know if you’re gonna have a flash period? Do you bring a whole new change of clothes? How do you show up to work when you’re presenting in front of the executives and you’re pouring sweat and you need a break? How do you show up when you have brain fog and you can’t remember somebody’s name because you’re so tired that you’re not getting enough sleep? Because you have anxiety, because you’re having problems with your spouse. And so it is a really big challenge, this return to work, because you can’t just turn off your camera and take a breath, relax, go step outside to cool down. You don’t get that opportunity when you’re in the workplace. You’re always on when you’re in the workplace, especially with these open workplace environments. You’re not just able to go into your office and shut your door anymore. You’re out and open and people are looking to you because you’re likely in a leadership position to see what it is that you’re doing. And so it’s super important to think about how this return to work is impacting these women and how do we support them when they’re in the office? How do we make sure that they have those spaces to take a break? Just like when you need to pump after having a baby and you have a set aside space and you have a fridge and you have everything you need. How do we do that same thing for women who are going through menopause symptoms and just need a break?
Jill Angelo
I’ll just add on to Devon’s point there around the return to work. So many workplaces are looking for ways to bring employees back and to incentivize them. And you think about the free meals and the, okay, if we all gather on these three days, then people will come because then everyone’s there. But I think when you’re talking about female working group or cisgender women’s working group, this is a perfect way to double down on this audience in terms of we know working at home is good for you in so many ways. You’ve become accustomed to it, but now with these symptoms, it’s also easier for you to manage them at home. It’s gonna make it easier in the workplace because we want you back in the office. So it’s perfect timing in terms of messaging and packaging up new benefits and getting people back. I just couldn’t think of kind of a more applicable moment in our workplace culture to spin up workplace benefits. I think in terms of timing, and this doesn’t necessarily address the work from home question that you just asked, but earlier Devon mentioned that when she was in benefits earlier in her career, it was very much during the time when fertility was becoming the new benefit. And now it’s like the de facto standard. It’s required in many states. That audience who initially started receiving those fertility benefits and have come to expect that kind of care from their employer are now moving into their 40s. And that’s when perimenopause starts to strike a person. And so when you even think about the average age of the patients that we see at Gennev, 48 and 49, it’s not 50s and 60s. These are women in their 40s, oftentimes in the prime of our careers. And so the wave of women who really got used to incredible fertility support are now moving into perimenopause. And so I think in terms of timing, that just is a second kind of point around why now is so important for employers to consider menopause benefits and support.
Sarah Wilkins
The other thing that really stood out to me, so if the impact on the individual isn’t enough, there was significant cost impact to organizations, right? For maybe not paying attention to this area or from like both a benefit standpoint, but maybe also an attrition standpoint. Can you all speak to that a little bit more?
Devon McGill
There’s measurable and non -measurable ways that menopause shows up in your workplace, whether you measure it or not. So from a measurable standpoint, a lot of what payers look at and employers look at is claims cost. So what you experience when there’s undiagnosed menopause, which means a woman’s going through menopause, they have menopause symptoms, but they don’t know it because they don’t, because there’s a lack of education, which is a huge issue in this space. And so what happens is women utilize other forms of clinical care in order to figure out what’s wrong with them. So they have heart palpitations. They think they’re having a heart attack. They go to the ER. That’s incredibly expensive. Or they’re seeking psychiatric care because they’re having anxiety and depression, not understanding that it’s really their hormones that are impacting them. That’s also incredibly expensive care. So all of those different episodes of care that women are receiving because they just don’t understand what’s going on, it’s expensive. Versus if a woman understands, okay, my hormones are changing. I know what’s happening to me. I go to the right care and get my menopause diagnosis. I’m heard, which is a huge issue for women is that they go to their PCP or they go to their OBGYN, and they often hear, welcome to getting older, which is not helpful. And so being heard, being understood, being educated and walked through what menopause is going to look like for them, they’re gonna actually receive the right care. And the dollar value of that is going to be huge savings for employers and payers. So that’s the first kind of dollar value and impact financially to organizations. And of course, the other one is presenteeism. So you’re showing up, but you’re not showing up as your best self because you’re exhausted and you’re distracted. And there’s so many other things going on in your life that you’re not able to do your best work and attrition. We just talked to somebody yesterday who talked about, I started to have brain fog and I thought to myself, is this it? Am I done with my career? Is it time for me to retire? And that’s absolutely not the case, right? But that’s where we go as women, as we say to ourselves, because society has told us this, we’re done, we’re expired, we’re no longer relevant. And so then you lose people who have all of this knowledge, who have all of this experience, because they just don’t know where to turn to. And it is expensive to replace those people. And organizations are spending a ton of money on doing diversity and equity and inclusion training and hiring, and really, they’re not getting to the root of the problem. Why are women not in leadership? Because we’re not giving them an opportunity to show up there without the right medical care. So that’s how you’re really going to see this show up in organizations, from an actual dollar financial cost that you can measure through claims, but also through presenteeism and people just resigning and taking themselves out of the workforce.
Jill Angelo
Earlier this year, the Mayo Clinic sponsored a study that kind of put some dollars behind what Devon was just talking about and around costs. And the cost of the absenteeism or lack of presenteeism is about 1 .6 billion annually across the United States and an additional 25 billion annually in associated healthcare costs that could have been, again, mitigated if a woman had gotten the right care versus going to the ER and some of those other ways that Devon just went into around where does she go and what does she do when she doesn’t have the menopause care she needs? So it gives you, the dollars are real and they’re very large but I want to add one more layer because we’re talking about she and female workers a lot. Menopause impacts anybody who was born with ovaries whether they identify male or female, but it’s also impacting men because if they have a female dependent on their healthcare benefits and she’s going through menopause, A, she needs the same kind of care that we’ve been talking about in this overall podcast but also the overall relationship and climate at home for that male identifying worker is impacted. If you have someone going through menopause and really experiencing it in a way that is changing their quality of life at home, it impacts the whole family, children, partners, et cetera. And so this is really not a benefit that is just for those of us that identify as women or are born with ovaries and are working in the workplace. It’s also our dependents that are experiencing the same thing.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, thank you for pointing that out and making that clear here. So I think it’s very clear for me and I hope now for listeners, why this is so important. It’s like, how can organizations better support employees? And we’ve maybe hit on a couple of these things but what specific benefits, resources, policies can help?
Devon McGill
There are so many different things that workplaces can do with the benefits that they already offer. And so benefits buyers and leaders are working with very small budgets. They spend a lot of money because healthcare is expensive. They don’t have a lot of wiggle room to just add in lots of different point solutions. And so we recognize that, we understand that. And so there’s lots of different ways with the benefits you already offer to support women in menopause. So one of the ways that we talked about in the white paper is really just creating a persona. So during open enrollment, we have doing these presentations where we talk about different personas. This is an employee who has no dependents. This is kind of what their medical costs could look like. Here are the benefits that we recommend and how we recommend they spend. We can do the same thing with a woman who’s in her midlife, right? And so you don’t have to say menopause but what you can do is create that persona and talk about
Devon McGill
FSAs or HSAs can cover hormone replacement therapy. If you have a lifestyle account, it can cover things like a cooling mattress so that you can sleep at night. It can cover lots of different vitamins and fitness trackers because fitness is super important during this stage of life. And so just bringing it up in that way of talking about how you can utilize benefits and listing out things that are applicable to menopause in the HSA list, in the FSA list, in the lifestyle account list. It really just allows employees to understand, okay, they’re creating a little bit of a door, a little bit of a crack for me to talk about my experience and menopause. I think what else teams can do is training, right? So there is a lack of education for women who are in their forties, right? So I’m an elder millennial, I am of that generation that expects to have things like fertility coverage and we don’t know, right? Like this job has allowed me to text all my friends and be like, did you know this was gonna happen to us? I had no idea. There’s just such a lack of education about what’s gonna happen to you for sure. And so what workplaces really can do is create spaces for education. So utilize those employee resource groups to bring in experts, to just talk about what to expect in menopause so that people can understand, one, feel validated with what they’re probably already experiencing and two, be prepared for what’s coming. And workplace webinars are a really good place to do that. We also recommend doing manager training and HR training. Managers really have a huge impact on how employees experience their work. So if they don’t understand what their employee might be going through and how best to support them, how do we expect them to do it? We have to teach them, right? It’s hard to be a manager. There’s so many things that you have to think about and deal with and without proper training, they’re never gonna know. So we definitely recommend required training about menopause and how it shows up in the workplace and how best to support your employees through that. So that’s a few different cheap or easy ways to support employees in their menopause journey. Of course, we also recommend like actual clinical care through companies like Gennev where employees can actually call up an OB -GYN. They can actually see someone within two to three days versus the six to nine month wait that people are seeing these days to get into their OB -GYN. And 50 % of counties in the United States don’t even have OB -GYNs. So we’re looking at a significant access issue here across the United States. And so offering specialty care is super important because when you meet with someone who works with menopausal women every single day and can talk you through what you’re experiencing and give you the right treatment, that’s life -changing. It will literally change someone’s life at home. It will change their life at work and you will see that change through their productivity which ultimately is the employer’s goal. And so offering these types of benefits is super critical. It really meets so many of the goals that employers have and Gennev makes it super easy as we become in network with more and more payers for benefits buyers to just add us on as a benefit with no additional cost. And so if a benefits buyer is listening to this and says, we definitely want to partner in terms of helping to support you and your employees in the best way possible, there’s many different ways to do that. But I think just starting that conversation with the leadership team and helping your CFO and your CEO and your COO start to understand what we’re really looking at and that 20 % of the population is experiencing some level of symptoms for menopause, you’ll start to build that story of why this is so important.
Sarah Wilkins
Thank you for highlighting that. And I think the manager training is such a common thread through everything we’ve talked about here on this podcast because like you said, they have such a, that was really helpful. And then I’m curious, any specific policies like obviously flexible work is super helpful for this group of people, anything else that you’ve seen with organizations that can really support from a policy standpoint as well?
Devon McGill
Yeah, so flexible work, definitely, that is huge and super helpful. I have heard there’s organizations that specifically set aside compassionate leave time for women experiencing symptoms of menopause that extends to women who are experiencing symptoms of their menstrual cycle as well, which is also a huge impact at work. And so organizations don’t have to necessarily go that far, but it’s a really good step in order to support women as they’re experiencing really tough days to allow them to have that leave. I think when we think about additional benefits that can be offered, there’s so many different ways. There’s so many different ways to access this population and to support this population. Leave of absences are a good way, sabbaticals are really great way to support women at this stage. All of those are expensive. And so having my benefits leader hat on, I understand how big of a selling or how difficult it is to sell those types of things. And so, you just have to think of different ways to use menopause symptoms within the examples of your policies. So when you talk about sick days, talk about brain fog, talk about when you’re having a difficult day with hot flashes. Just insert those symptoms right in there as to why you can take a day off. I think that goes a really long way for women to feel heard and feel like it’s okay to take a day off, that it’s okay to work from home because you’re having a particularly challenging day and you just need to lay down between meetings. Without kind of really detailing that out in the policies, people really wonder like, can I do this? Is this okay? You talk yourself out of it. Women, we feel like we have to suffer. And as our chief medical officer says, you don’t get a blue ribbon for suffering. So there’s no need to suffer. And women will, taking those days off and taking that time off in between meetings, you’ll get a woman who shows up better at work and is more productive and is more present because they feel supported, they’re getting what they need and it will pay dividends in the long run.
Jill Angelo
Just to add on to Devon’s comments there, allyship and support. You don’t need to create a menopause ERG because you might not get a lot of people wanting to just identify and sign up, but giving folks a safe place to gather, to congregate, to be a community and drive that kind of support for one another, that just pays incredible dividends in terms of making people feel heard and supported and having allies in the organization because you’re just recognizing that it’s a need and that they’re there and that they need that extra support. Really simple to implement and kind of can’t underscore that enough. We run our own community and support group within Gennev and it’s active. Women are talking every single day and they’re finding just, again, the support that they need. So another item that just can’t underscore enough.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, and is that something anyone can join from anywhere or is that an internal group?
Jill Angelo
No, we actually administer it via Facebook. So it is anonymous or however you wanna identify in that group, but it is moderated by our team, our physicians, our dieticians pop in there from time to time. But where we see the highest engagement is women, helping women asking, has anyone suffered from this? Yes, I tried that. I tried this. This worked for me. Or sometimes people just need to complain a little bit and just feel heard and say, God, does anyone else have days like this? Yes, I do too. And sometimes just knowing that others around you, you’re not alone going through it, it’s a big deal. It makes you feel better when you know that you’re not the only one. So it is absolutely, it’s Gennev Midlife and Menopause Solutions on Facebook. It is free. There are incredible women in that group, just active every day.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, those two things that you both just pointed out, just something as simple as noting in your sick leave that these are reasons you can take sick leave or take off. And then also just having a support group or a place to go to talk to people going through similar things. Cause I imagine it can feel really lonely if you don’t wanna identify or you don’t know someone else at work going through it or someone else in your life to talk to. And so I think those are such great resources. Thank you. Well, we’re nearing the end and a lot of this made me think and I know that it’s gonna give the listener such a great kind of set of things that they could do. But yeah, what final parting thoughts would each of you have that you want listeners to really hone in on today?
Jill Angelo
I think more than anything in terms of, depending upon whether you are a HR benefits leader or an HR leader within the organization, or if you are a person experiencing menopause, there are so many opportunities and ways, hopefully what you took away from this podcast is there’s ways to just get started now. You don’t have to roll out a big benefits package. There are small little things that you can do in your workplace to start to feel, make this group of individuals feel incredibly supported. And if you are a woman going through menopause or perimenopause or wondering, is this that thing, is this perimenopause and I have been like really agitated lately or just really fatigued or my period is just out of control, come and get help. You can come to jenev .com again, as Devon mentioned, we have increasingly more and more health plans and payers that we’re in network with. Or if you just want a supportive community, obviously come to Jenev’s Midlife Menopause Solutions Group we are here to just answer questions, even if you need navigation to it.
Devon McGill
Yeah, the last thing I would add here is for HR benefits leaders, don’t wait until you have multiple people coming to you, asking you for this. It is not women’s responsibility to speak up. It is not their responsibility to educate everybody around them about menopause and their experience. It’s your responsibility to create a safe space for them to show up as their best selves at work. And so don’t wait, don’t make this be like the fertility where I had to be in open enrollment meetings and people would have to tell me their stories about how not having fertility benefits would impact them and a room full of people. Don’t put people in that position. Step up, support them now. There’s lots of different resources. You don’t have to wait. We’ve given you lots of good ways to get started but don’t put the onus on those people because it is a difficult conversation. We as a culture have freely dismissed this group of women which is unfortunate and it’s gonna take some time for women to feel comfortable to speak up for themselves and to talk about what they’re experiencing. And so don’t make them do that. Don’t make them have to say out loud in front of a group of 200 people in an open enrollment meeting that they’re having hot flashes. Give them the space and the support that they need before it gets to that point.
Sarah Wilkins
Thank you both so much, such helpful information. And I hope that more and more people start talking about this and consider it up to your point, right? That it’s not something that, you know people going through menopause have to continue to fight for that it’s just something that, you know leaders and benefits leaders are already thinking about and support. Thank you for listening to this episode of Humans Beyond Resources. Visit ReverbPeople .com to find free resources, subscribe to our newsletter and connect with our team. If you haven’t already, subscribe to stay up to date on all of our upcoming episodes. We look forward to having you as part of our community.
