Green grass, enormous queues, strawberries, Pimm’s, and all-white outfits. It can only mean one thing; Wimbledon, a cornerstone of the British summer and the global sporting calendar.
You may not have noticed, but one of those aforementioned traditions underwent a small but significant tweak last year: for the first time, organisers allowed female competitors to wear non-white undergarments. This minor deviation from the tradition of head-to-toe white was in response to players’ anxieties about visibly leaking blood if they were on their period during a match.
Shortly after Wimbledon’s edict, the England women's football team followed suit, and the Lionesses now wear blue shorts. Other teams have taken similar steps.
Read more: Endometriosis: Everything HR needs to know
These are good examples of organisations removing a barrier to peak performance, rather than putting the cart before the horses and prioritising protocol above practicality.
As the leader of a menstrual health charity, I welcome these steps. Endometriosis UK exists to support people affected by endometriosis, a common disease with symptoms including chronic pelvic pain, painful periods, painful bowel movements and more. It impacts 1 in 10 women and those assigned female at birth from puberty to menopause; that’s around 1.5 million people in the UK.
It’s not the only way in which elite sport is ahead of the game. Other examples of progressive approaches include Olympians, Lionesses and others being empowered to talk about their experiences of living endometriosis or other menstrual health conditions. Clubs and groups are considering the implications of menstrual cycles on training plans, and people are participating in much-needed scientific research around the topic.
More broadly, employers of all kinds recognise the need to create non-judgmental, honest, safe workplaces, in which mental health and other issues are more openly discussed. Nonetheless, menstrual health remains a real taboo in too many environments, which risks making people with menstrual health issues feel isolated, demotivated, and unable to receive the support they need to thrive.
Read more: We need to better support and retain employees with endometriosis
Some employers are trying to change this, not least members of Endometriosis UK’s Endometriosis Friendly Employers scheme, who range from large organisations, such as Bank of Ireland, British Airways, HSBC UK, People’s Postcode Lottery and South Wales Police, through to SMEs and others. The scheme supports employers to create change on two fronts: firstly the individual, ensuring that people with endometriosis are properly supported with the right policies in place; and secondly the cultural, ensuring that employers are doing their bit to ensure more openness and understanding around menstrual health.
The vast majority of HR leaders reading this article don’t, I imagine, work for organisations that stipulate what colour underwear their staff should wear. Nonetheless, if you do have any kind of dress code or uniform, please consider whether it is practical and dignified for people with any form of health condition, including menstrual health issues. For example, endometriosis can cause cyclical bloating. Allowing staff two sizes of uniform can make such a difference to their comfort and dignity.
Read more: Shifting the balance in women's health: why we're finally talking about it
I also urge you to consider whether your organisation has any of what we might term ‘white-short policies’, by which I mean rules or regulations that achieve little other than acting as a barrier or hindrance, but are maintained just because 'that’s the way it is'. There are plenty of relatively small and straightforward things that employers could do to improve conditions for people with endometriosis.
Of course, it’s not all about quick wins – some of the measures needed in order to ensure you are truly an endometriosis-friendly organisation may take time. But when you’ve got the chance to improve the wellbeing and productivity of a significant proportion of the workforce – 190 million people worldwide – and make yourself a more attractive employer to that group, we would argue that it is more than worth the effort.
By Emma Cox, CEO, Endometriosis UK
