Retain the women you can't afford to lose.
Some of the most experienced women in our workplaces are entering a stage of life that can profoundly change how they experience work.
Midlife women often sit inside organisations with years (sometimes decades) of experience, relationships, institutional knowledge and leadership capability.
Their departure is not simply an individual career decision. It can represent a significant loss of capability.
- Experience
- Relationships
- Institutional knowledge
- Customer understanding
- Leadership capability
- Technical expertise
- Commercial judgement
- Cultural influence
What becomes possible when we stop seeing midlife women as a workplace problem to manage and start recognising them as experienced talent worth designing for?
What might your organisation be misreading?
- A senior woman who appears disengaged
- may actually be exhausted from compensating.
- A high performer who suddenly questions promotion
- may not have lost ambition.
- A woman who needs flexibility
- may not be less committed.
- Someone considering leaving
- may have spent months wondering whether the workplace can meet her differently before deciding that it cannot.
- Managers never given the language to navigate these conversations
- often avoid them entirely.
There is enormous opportunity for organisations prepared to listen differently.
- Awareness
- Conversation
- Leadership capability
- Workplace response
- Retention
Hormonal change can be part of a woman's experience of midlife, but reducing the workplace conversation to symptoms alone misses something larger. The opportunity is not to medicalise women or require disclosure. It is to improve the quality of workplace conversation and response, so leaders have the language and confidence to respond well.
A policy is not the same as a lived experience.
Beyond Awareness™
Menopause at Work
A research-informed, professionally facilitated organisational experience that helps organisations build better conversation, stronger leadership response and a more inclusive culture for women in midlife.
- Format
- 90 minutes
- Basis
- Research-led
- Audience
- Leaders + People teams
- Delivery
- In person or virtual
- Outcome
- Practical action
-
Listen
What women are telling The Midlife Truth about midlife and work.
-
Surface
Confidential, professionally facilitated conversation about lived experience, culture, barriers and support.
-
Reframe
Language, manager confidence, flexibility and stigma, and how workplace support translates into lived experience.
-
Act
Identifying practical shifts the organisation can carry forward beyond the session.
- Shared language
- Greater manager confidence
- Clearer support pathways
- Practical organisational actions
From conversation to action.
Every organisation leaves with a simple framework it can adopt after the session.
-
Open the conversation
Create permission without requiring disclosure.
-
Prepare leaders
Give managers useful language and response confidence.
-
Enable support
Make practical flexibility and support pathways visible.
-
Normalise, without assuming
Recognise the life stage while respecting individual experience.
Beyond Awareness is the flagship. Here's what else is available.
Beyond Awareness™ is often the starting point. The deeper work is helping organisations turn understanding into practice.
- Executive Briefings
Bring the conversation into the leadership room.
A focused, research-led briefing for executive teams, People & Culture leaders and senior decision-makers.
Enquire about an executive briefingDesigned to help leaders understand
- What women are experiencing.
- What organisations commonly misread.
- Why midlife can change a woman's relationship with work.
- The implications for retention and leadership.
- Where organisations can respond differently.
- Keynotes
Start a conversation across the organisation.
Research-led keynotes exploring midlife, women, work, leadership and the workplace assumptions that may be costing organisations experienced talent.
Explore SpeakingDesigned for
- Leadership conferences.
- Women's events.
- Company-wide events.
- People & Culture programs.
- Industry conferences.
- Executive forums.
- Workshops
Move from awareness into conversation and action.
Discuss a workshopDesigned for
- Midlife women.
- People leaders.
- Executive teams.
- Women's networks.
- Mixed organisational groups.
- Strategic Advisory
For organisations ready to go deeper.
Some organisations need more than an event.
Discuss an organisational engagementHow midlife intersects with
- Retention.
- Leadership.
- Culture.
- Employee experience.
- Workplace design.
- Communication.
- Manager capability.
- Women's progression.
I'm listening before telling organisations what women need.
- Careers
- Relationships
- Identity
- The body
- Sense of self
- 20+ years building businesses, brands and teams
- Founder, Shhh Silk
- Employer-side leadership: people, performance, culture, growth
- Ongoing qualitative research into women's lived experience of midlife
The commercial reality of organisations.
And the lived reality of women.
Questions organisations ask
What happens in Beyond Awareness™?
Sessions combine research, conversation, facilitated reflection and practical organisational insight. They are not designed to tell every woman what midlife should feel like. They are designed to create enough safety and structure for people to explore what is actually happening.
What does a strategic advisory engagement involve?
Depending on the organisation, this may involve internal listening, qualitative research, leadership conversations, workshops and recommendations.
What is The Midlife Truth, and who facilitates?
The Midlife Truth is an ongoing body of qualitative listening, research and writing exploring what women are actually living through in the middle of their lives. Olivia brings those lived insights directly into the room, translating what women are saying into better organisational conversation and practical action.
Can sessions be delivered online?
Yes, Beyond Awareness is a research-informed, professionally facilitated experience, delivered in person or online.
Is this work a fit for my organisation?
Organisations genuinely interested in retaining experienced women. People & Culture teams. Leadership teams. Women’s networks. Professional services. Retail and consumer businesses. Large corporates. Purpose-led organisations. Conference and event organisers.
What are women actually questioning?
How they want to work. What they're prepared to sacrifice. Whether leadership still feels worth the cost. Their relationships. Their identity outside caregiving. The expectations they've carried for decades. Their energy. Their ambition. Their sense of meaning. Whether the workplace they've succeeded inside still works for the woman they are becoming.
Start with the conversation your organisation needs to be having.
If you're exploring a keynote, leadership briefing, workshop or broader organisational engagement, tell me a little about what you're seeing inside your workplace.