Conversations about gender equity at work tend to orbit around a familiar set of issues: pay gaps, parental leave, leadership pipelines. These matter enormously. But there is another factor shaping the daily experience of roughly half the workforce that most organisations still refuse to talk about openly. The menstrual cycle affects energy, cognition, mood and physical comfort in patterns that repeat month after month, year after year. When workplaces ignore this reality, they do not just fail individual employees. They quietly erode the conditions that make genuine equity possible.
McKinsey Global Institute’s landmark research estimated that narrowing the gender gap could add $12 trillion to annual global GDP, a figure equivalent to the combined economies of Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. Realising even a portion of that potential means removing barriers that keep menstruators from participating fully in the workforce. Cyclical wellness is one of those barriers, and it is hiding in plain sight.
The Productivity Numbers No One Is Talking About
Research published in BMJ Open surveyed over 32,000 menstruators and found that 80.7% reported presenteeism, showing up to work while experiencing symptoms that reduced their output. The same study calculated an average of 23.2 days per year of decreased productivity per person, translating to roughly 8.9 days of fully lost output annually. These are not small numbers. Scaled across an organisation of a few hundred employees, the accumulated impact is significant.
Separately, up to 91% of menstruators studied worldwide have reported experiencing menstrual pain, with 29% describing that pain as severe. Conditions like endometriosis, which affects roughly 1 in 10 menstruators of reproductive age, can carry productivity costs reaching tens of thousands of dollars per person per year. Despite this, most companies have no framework for acknowledging, let alone addressing, these realities.
What makes the situation worse is silence. A cross-sectional study conducted through the Flo Health app found that only 20% of menstruators felt comfortable disclosing the reason for a menstruation-related absence to their employer. This means the vast majority either suffer through symptoms at their desks or call in sick with a fabricated excuse. Neither option is good for the individual or the organisation.
Why Cyclical Wellness Belongs in the Equity Conversation
Gender equity programmes in most workplaces stop at structural and representational measures. Quotas, mentorship schemes and anti-discrimination policies are all necessary. But they operate on the assumption that everyone’s body shows up to work in the same condition every day. For menstruators, that assumption is factually wrong.
The phases of the menstrual cycle bring predictable and understandable shifts in energy and focus. Follicular and ovulatory phases often coincide with higher energy, sharper verbal fluency and greater sociability. Luteal and menstrual phases can bring fatigue, reduced concentration and physical discomfort. None of this is a sign of weakness or incapacity. It is physiology. And understanding it opens the door to working with the body rather than against it.
Cyclical wellness is not about special treatment. It is about recognising an unmet need that has tangible effects on engagement, retention and output. Australia’s Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre and the Health Services Union reported that 1 in 8 Australian employees have taken leave due to menstrual or reproductive health issues. The true figure is almost certainly higher, given how many people mask the real reason for their absence.
What Forward-Thinking Organisations Are Doing
A growing number of employers and governments have started to act. In 2023, Spain became the first European country to legislate paid menstrual leave, allowing up to three days per month (extendable to five) for those with incapacitating symptoms. Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan and Zambia all have some form of menstrual leave on the books, though uptake varies widely depending on cultural attitudes and workplace norms.
But leave policies are only one part of the picture. The most effective approaches combine structural change with education and cultural shift. Organisations that are getting this right tend to focus on several areas at once:
- Flexible scheduling and remote work options that allow menstruators to adjust their working patterns during high-symptom days, without requiring disclosure of the specific reason.
- Manager and team education that normalises conversations about cyclical health and removes the awkwardness that keeps so many people silent.
- Access to rest spaces and free period products in workplace bathrooms, which pilot studies in Kenya and Nepal found reduced anxiety and improved work performance.
These are not expensive interventions. The McKinsey Health Institute has noted that every $1 invested in women’s health yields approximately $3 in economic return. Flexible work arrangements already exist in many organisations; extending their logic to encompass cyclical health is a relatively small step with outsized benefits.
Education Is the Missing Link
Policy without education tends to fall flat. Spain’s experience illustrates this: in the first year of its menstrual leave law, only around 1,559 claims were lodged across the entire country. That averages fewer than five employees per day, in a workforce of over 21 million. Researchers pointed to the requirement for a doctor’s note, general stigma, and a widespread fear that taking the leave would lead to discrimination.
Stigma does not disappear because a policy exists. It shifts when people understand the biology, when managers are trained to respond with competence rather than discomfort, and when the organisational culture treats cyclical health as a normal part of working life. This is where coaches and educators come in. Trained practitioners can help organisations move from policy on paper to genuine change in practice.
For those working in HR, people operations or organisational development, cyclical living coaching is an emerging field worth paying attention to. It equips practitioners to deliver evidence-based education that is grounded in physiology, respectful of diverse experiences, and practical enough to shift behaviour at the team level.
The argument for cyclical wellness in the workplace is not sentimental. It rests on data. Consider what happens when organisations take it seriously:
- Reduced presenteeism, because employees are supported to work with their bodies rather than pushing through debilitating symptoms in silence.
- Higher retention rates, as menstruators are more likely to stay with employers who demonstrate genuine understanding of their needs.
- Better team dynamics, because open communication about health reduces resentment, guesswork and misunderstandings around absences.
The Bigger Picture
Menstrual health is not a niche concern. More than 1.8 billion people worldwide menstruate every month. In workplaces, schools and public institutions, the failure to acknowledge this reality costs trillions in lost output and perpetuates inequities that formal policies alone cannot fix. The $12 trillion gender equity opportunity that McKinsey described requires action across many fronts, and cyclical wellness at work is one of them.
Organisations that move early on this will not only build more equitable workplaces. They will also position themselves as employers of choice in a labour market that increasingly values wellbeing, flexibility and authenticity. The cost of inaction is not neutral. It shows up in absenteeism figures, in turnover data, in the quiet disengagement of talented people who feel unseen.
The conversation about gender equity at work has always been incomplete. Adding cyclical wellness to it does not complicate matters. It clarifies them. When organisations understand the body as well as they understand the bottom line, the gap between potential and performance begins to close.
