What a champion actually is (and isn't)

• Is: the named person inside the org who keeps the topic warm, runs the lunch-and-learn, knows where the policy lives, and can point a colleague to one good first step.
• Is: usually a volunteer, not a promotion. Time-boxed to about twelve months, with a successor lined up.
• Isn't: a counsellor, a doctor or an HR substitute. Three things a champion never does: give medical advice, take a disclosure on HR's behalf, or handle a discrimination complaint. All three get warm-handed onwards.
• Isn't: unpaid extra work. Ten percent of role time is the honest ask. If your org won't give that, it isn't ready for a champion, it's ready for a poster.

Before you say yes (15 minutes with your manager)

• Agree the twelve-month time-box and a written handover at month 12.
• Agree the ten-percent time allocation, in writing.
• Agree the budget for the lunch-and-learn (food, room, materials).
• Agree who the champion reports findings to (usually HR + the relevant ERG sponsor).
• Agree the three things you will not be asked to do (see above).

The 45-minute lunch-and-learn script

Bring food. Make it opt-in. Don't record it. Open invitation to anyone, not just women, not just people in midlife. The point is normalization, not a women's-health-only event.

Minutes 0 to 5 · open

"Thanks for being here. This session is forty-five minutes. We'll cover three things: what menopause actually is and isn't, what it looks like at work, and one practical thing each of us can do differently on Monday. Two ground rules. One, nothing said in this room leaves. Two, we're not diagnosing anyone, including ourselves."

Minutes 5 to 15 · what menopause actually is (the 10-minute version)

• Perimenopause is the run-up. Usually four to ten years, often starting in the early forties. The hormones swing, then drop.
• Menopause is one day. The one-year anniversary of the last period. After it, you're postmenopausal for the rest of your life.
• Symptoms come in roughly thirty-four flavours. The famous one is the hot flash. The ones that hit work hardest are usually sleep, anxiety, brain fog and joint pain.
• One in ten women in the UK has left a job over menopause symptoms. That's not a personality issue, it's an organizational design issue.
• Treatments exist and they work. HRT for many. Non-hormonal options for others. CBT-Meno and CBT-I for the symptoms talking therapies can move.

Minutes 15 to 30 · what it looks like at work (small-group)

Break the room into groups of three or four. Five minutes per question, then a one-line share-back.

1. What's one small thing about our office, our meetings or our scheduling that would be different if we'd designed for someone with menopause symptoms?
2. What's one phrase you've heard at work (about a colleague or yourself) that you'd retire if you could?
3. What's one adjustment that would cost the org nothing but would help?

Minutes 30 to 40 · what we have, and where it lives

• Show the menopause policy. Say where it lives on the intranet.
• Show the adjustments-request one-pager (work toolkit, page 1).
• Name the manager pack and say all managers have been offered the forty-five-minute training.
• Name the EAP, and what it actually covers.
• Name the benefits coverage (MHT/HRT under the drug plan, if applicable).
• Name the champion (you), what you'll do, what you won't do, and how to find you.

Minutes 40 to 45 · one thing each, on Monday

"Before we close, on the index card in front of you, write one thing you'll do differently on Monday. Could be a meeting you'll move to the morning. A phrase you'll stop using. A colleague you'll check in on. Keep the card for yourself. We won't read them."

Three break-room poster prompts

Plain A4 (or US Letter), one prompt per poster, big type, low decoration. The point is presence, not graphic design. Print on cream or off-white, not white, so it reads as cared-about rather than corporate.

Poster 1

About half of us will go through menopause.
All of us work with someone who is.
The policy lives at [intranet link].
The champion is [name], at [email].

Poster 2

Things you can ask for, without explaining.
A desk fan. A window seat. A meeting moved to the morning.
Layers you can shed. Ten minutes out of a long meeting.
The one-pager is on the intranet. Take it to your 1:1.

Poster 3

If you're a manager, three things help.
Don't make people explain the biology.
Say yes to small, low-cost asks. Most cost nothing.
Book the forty-five-minute manager training. It's on the calendar.

The sustaining-it checklist (the part most programs skip)

Menopause programs die in month four. The lunch-and-learn went well, the posters went up, and then everyone went back to their week. The checklist below is the difference between a one-off event and a real shift.

Month 3 · check-in (30 minutes)

• How many people have asked for an adjustment since the lunch-and-learn?
• Did the policy actually get used? By whom, how?
• Are the posters still up, or have they been taken down?
• Has any manager done the forty-five-minute training? How many?
• One thing to refresh before month 6.

Month 6 · second touch (60 minutes)

• Run a second, shorter session. Twenty-five minutes, Q&A only.
• Rotate the posters. Same paper, new wording.
• Refresh the intranet page (most go stale by month 6).
• Anonymously survey: is the workplace getting easier or harder for someone in midlife? Five questions, three minutes.
• One thing to escalate to HR or the ERG sponsor.

Month 9 · the recruitment piece

• Identify your successor. Have the first conversation.
• Document what you've actually done (the lunch-and-learn, the posters, the wins, the asks that got declined and why).
• Co-host the next session with your successor.

Month 12 · handover

• Written handover (one page) to your successor.
• Final report to HR and the ERG sponsor (one page).
• Thank-you to everyone who showed up.
• Step back. You're not the champion anymore. You're someone who was, and who'll answer one question when asked. That's enough.

Three things a champion never does

• Give medical advice. Even when asked. Even when you know the answer. "I'd take that to a menopause-trained specialist, the policy has the EAP number, and there's a list of questions to take with you on /clinician-questions."
• Take a formal disclosure on HR's behalf. A colleague saying "this is happening to me too" in the corridor isn't a disclosure. A colleague asking you to log it, is. Walk them to HR.
• Handle a discrimination complaint. Point them at the discrimination evidence log (page 5 of this toolkit), HR, and (if needed) external legal support. Don't carry it yourself.

If you only do three things this year

1. Run the forty-five-minute lunch-and-learn, once.
2. Put up posters 1, 2 and 3, and rotate them at month 6.
3. Identify and brief your successor by month 9.

Anything past that is a bonus. Most champions try to do twenty things and burn out by month four. Three things, done all the way through, beat twenty things half-done.