“No more mefthal and work”
That was, more or less, the first thing someone typed in the chat when the session ended.
We’ll come back to that. First, a male manager said something in the manager session that stayed with us:
“I wish my wife’s company did this. She has really painful periods. I’m sure I have people on my team who’ve been managing the same thing.” That’s the whole story, really.
But let’s go through it properly, here’s a case study on implementing the PERIOD LEAVE POLICY
It started with asking
A workplace survey finally asked the direct question, and women team members responded.
75% said they could use rest or support during their period and 55% were forced to take days off.
They just weren’t calling it in. They called it a headache, a stomachache, a vague “not feeling well.” They worked from home on one day, they took painkillers and showed up anyway. The policy didn’t exist yet. The hiding had been going on for years.
Nine productive days are lost per person every year to period cramps.
One respondent, when she heard the results, wrote: “I hesitate to take a day off thinking every other woman can manage it, then why not me.”
We dug deeper
The data was in; the need for rest is real and the day off is pragmatic. But we still had to address the elephant in the room – The stigma!
We’d seen it before — a well-intentioned policy drop, managers feel awkward, employees feel watched, and quietly, the hiding continues. Different leave type. Same behavior.
So, we went back to the intent – more than a checkbox exercise, the intent was to move the needle. A policy alone wasn’t going to fix this. The culture had to shift too. The consensus was unanimous – De-stigmatize! We landed on a sensitization campaign — for everyone, across the organization.
Because if the conversation stayed only with the women it affected, the policy would sit unused.
The Buzz
Emails, Posters, Internal comms, social media and finally, classroom sessions.
We ran multiple sessions across two weeks. We covered multiple locations and languages — employee sessions and manager sessions separately. Same policy. Very different anxiety in the room.
The Individual Contributors needed to know the policy was real and usable. Not theoretical. Not “in principle you can take this leave but we’ll see how it actually goes.” The questions they asked in the chat told us everything:
“This would be a last minute leave — will the manager agree to the same?”
“How do I inform my male lead? From a taboo perspective.”
“What happens when I get period during important days? Unofficially, we are not allowed to take leave during some days.”
“Generally males find it as an excuse and may get irked by the females using this benefit.”
The Managers – We needed them to be the ambassadors of this culture shift — to bring it into their team huddles, their one-on-ones. To listen and not make it weird.
We addressed the fear directly, “Visibility of the leave type can make some employees uncomfortable about asking for this leave , why can’t it be a simple casual leave”? – We shared the rationale and gave them the language.
“All Menstruating employees have an option to avail 1 day of period leave (Menstrual Leave) per month. This is an auto-approved leave type with a notification to the employee and the manager“
What This Was Actually About
The policy was one day of leave per month. Auto-approved. Paid. Non-cumulative.
What it took to make that policy usable was the work that happened before it was announced — understanding that 75% of the people it was meant to serve had never had a legitimate reason to say I need to rest today and have it be enough. Without the sessions, the policy would have existed. With them, people actually asked the questions they needed to ask before they could believe it was real.
The visibility piece — the part that made some people nervous — turned out to be the point. Naming it was the company saying out loud: this is a legitimate reason to rest. That’s the difference between a policy and a culture shift.
Period leave isn’t radical. Bodies are bodies. Pain is pain. The radical thing, apparently, is saying it out loud at work.
And then someone typed: “No more mefthol!”
This engagement was part of a larger culture transformation project with the same client. Read that case study here.
Want to build policies that actually get used? Let’s talk.
“First day has been very difficult for me. I hesitate to take a day-off. But, this really helps.”
“Usually policies are rolled out through internal communication…but here you are separate session for Managers and team members….Thank you so much HR team”
“This is an fantastic move. Really feel proud that I am part of this org. Just makes it comfortable for us to take a pause/leave and come back better than struggle to come to office 🙂
“Thanks for being so compassionate… It’s really a great initiative…”
“Its really overwhelming to see that our leaders care enough about its employees”