Morgana Lakatos-Hayward is a health coach and business owner of This Isn't a Diet where the primary focus is to help women lose weight without dieting and balance their hormones, blood sugar and gut health. She is the host of Listen to This When You're Done Dieting on Spotify, with her new book, Read This When You're Done Dieting on the way.
Imagine this, you discover the untapped advantage in the workplace that has been sitting under your nose all this time. This is a group that possesses empathy, is enjoyable to work with, is an innovative badass, brainstorms factories every month, and is a productive wonder with the most intuitive senses. This group, my friends, are women.
Women in their menstruating years go through a beautiful infradian rhythm month after month, like clockwork. Each stage of their menstrual cycle offers unique advantages to level up different areas of their work, offering corporations a myriad of benefits. So why are we paid less (perhaps another topic for another time), made to suffer and constantly overlooked?
The workplace as we know it
Vitti states that society is built around a circadian rhythm which matches the male hormonal pattern, as well as menopausal women. This rhythm holds that the morning/daytime is perfect for getting work done with an emphasis on social interaction in the late afternoon (for those who fancy a drink after work or socializing with colleagues), followed by winding down in the evenings. This is what the corporate workplace looks like, day in and day out. We as women suffer as a result of trying to fit ourselves within the mold of the male hormonal pattern. Some days we soar through meetings, take on networking events and smash through everything thrown our way (without needing a wind down might I add). And other days we want to put our head down and get everything checked on our to-do lists. These cyclical patterns can indeed be clocked and utilized to a company’s advantage.
Infradian rhythm phases and the advantages of each
Follicular phase: this phase stems from days 1-7 in a woman’s cycle. It’s a time when a woman is bursting with ideas. She has an increased number of hormones and becomes an innovative brainstorming genius. This phase comes every month and can truly offer companies continuous product development, customer service enhancements, marketing ideas, packaging and distribution models and more. Just give her a pen and paper and watch the ideas flow.
Ovulation phase: this peak of hormones, which ranges for roughly 3 days, offers women a burst of marketing and networking genius. Women become primed for communication in this phase. They will want to lead projects, speak with clients, network at events and market the company. With women being great listeners, team builders and empathetic speakers (more so than their male counterparts as shown in multiple studies according to Rob Kendall), wouldn’t you want to put them in front of the corporate camera?
Luteal phase: this two-week period is go-time for women. They instinctively want to get everything done, wrap projects up and check everything off their to-do lists. Watch half of your workforce become productive machines tackling tasks left right and center. This is the body’s way of preparing for menstruation.
Menstrual phase: this is the roughly one weeklong phase which tends to give women a bad rap for being “hormonal” and “needing special treatment”. This is the physical bleed phase where women have heightened intuition, can reflect on projects and plan for the month ahead, as well as requiring rest to nourish their bodies to be able to kick ass the next month. With all the competitive advantages women offer, don’t you think they deserve to have management cater to their needs so they can continue performing at a high level?
The new and improved workplace
The first step towards companies utilizing the genius that is women is to educate them about their cycles. Many women have no idea the power that they hold and lack the information to tap into the unique benefits offered at each stage in their cycle. Company workshops and trainings would be a great start towards this, as well as including men in them so they can learn to listen and work with women in each phase.
One of the surefire ways to guarantee continuous development is to make use of women in their follicular phases. Offering brainstorming meetings to women in the various departments of the company during this time can generate enough ideas to keep the company ahead of the curve. Have women opt into these meetings depending on the phase that they are in. Making use of women in the ovulatory phase would involve allowing them to volunteer for networking events and lead marketing efforts or teams within their own departments.
I also believe that allowing women to take the time their body needs during menstruation is vital for nourishing their hormones to allow for this continuous productivity. Menstrual leave has existed in various country’s national policies for many years. The Soviet Union introduced menstrual leave in 1922, Japan in 1947 and Indonesia in 1948. This entails paid time off for women opting to take these days during their time of menstruation, apart from sick days. Some women suffer through incredible pain and severe symptoms yet are expected to show up to work as if nothing is wrong. There should be an option out there for women that allows them to take care of themselves, so that they can further take care of the company. If this seems a bit far-fetched for some companies, perhaps offering menstrual benefits such as early leave or late starts to their workday will offer relief to countless women out there.
Furthermore, I encourage companies to safeguard their assets (meaning women) from burnout or hormonal imbalances. Many companies nowadays have begun hopping on the wellness bandwagon and offering gym facilities at the workplace. Adding in saunas and steam rooms would be an amazing addition as they protect against hormone toxicity in women. Stocking breakrooms with raspberry leaf tea is another recommendation to help these women instantly relief cramping and PMS related symptoms. If you even want to go crazy with it, offer free menstrual products in women’s washrooms to truly value her and her cycle.
I can imagine a workforce that takes into account both a male and female’s hormonal cycle to allow for both sexes to perform at their best. With the suppression of women’s health coming to a grinding halt, designing a workplace that caters to nourishing a woman’s hormones, listening to her ideas and treating her like an equal is the next step to women’s empowerment. And I can guarantee once companies realize the profitability potential here with the low-cost initiatives recommended, other companies will be looking to find their secrets.
Read more from Morgana Lakatos-Hayward
Morgana Lakatos-Hayward, Health Coach, Podcaster, Author
Morgana is a former world champion Latin dancer turned health coach. From making under $25k per year to now owning a thriving health coaching practice called: "This Isn't a Diet", a podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts "Listen to This When You're Done Dieting", and a book on the way entitled "Read This When You're Done Dieting", she has turned her financial situation around to become financially independent and open 6 different income streams. She is currently working on developing two more income streams and claims that her financial shift started with a simple mindset change.
References:
Francis, Ali. “Could ‘menstrual Leave’ Change the Workplace?” BBC News, BBC, 27 Apr. 2022, www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220426-could-menstrual-leave-change-the-workplace.
Kendall, Rob. “5 Ways Men and Women Talk Differently.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 15 Dec. 2016, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/blamestorming/201612/5-ways-men-and-women-talk-differently.
Vitti, Alisa. In the Flo. MIRA, 2020.
