The leavers never told you why
When asking for a change at work feels riskier than leaving, women leave. The exit interview says relocation, family, a better offer. The real reason walks out the door unrecorded, and the replacement cost lands on your budget with no line item.
What the leaving costs
One in ten women who worked during the menopause left a job because of their symptoms.
Source: Fawcett Society, Menopause and the Workplace, 2022
A further 17% of women aged 40 to 60 with menopause symptoms have considered leaving because of a lack of support, and two-thirds (67%) say their symptoms have had a mostly negative effect on them at work.
Source: CIPD, Menopause in the workplace: Employee experiences in 2023, October 2023
The replacement bill is specific. Evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee put the cost of replacing one woman earning £25,000 who leaves because of her symptoms at over £30,500. The same committee report notes that menopausal-age women are the fastest growing group in the UK workforce.
Hearing the asks before the resignation letter
Most of what women ask for costs very little: a flexible start, a cooler corner, somewhere to step away. The asks exist long before the resignation. They just never reach you, because raising them means disclosing a health issue to the organisation that decides your promotion.
That is the gap an anonymous, independent pulse closes. The asks surface with no name attached, ranked by how many people made each one. Fix what your own workforce ranked highest, remeasure in six months, and the work pays for itself in the resignations that do not happen.