Endometriosis Awareness Month

“Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws require persons conducting a business or undertaking to do what is reasonably practicable to provide a safe working environment and to ensure the health and safety of workers whilst at work, including workers with existing injuries or illness” (Work Safe Queensland, 2019)

Endometriosis is an inflammatory condition where endometrial tissue grows outside of the uterus. It is estimated one in nine women, girls and those assigned female at birth will be affected by endometriosis. Currently there are over 830,000 endometriosis patients in Australia.

This condition can cause chronic pelvic or abdominal pain for individuals and can make it increasingly difficult to work. In the last few years, endometriosis awareness has become more prevalent in the community as well known public figures have spoken out about their personal experience allowing more people to understand the full effects on women who are suffering with the illness. 

In a recent study, women, girls and other individuals with endometriosis say having the disease recognised and acknowledged by people around them, such as their managers, can positively influence their experience. You can support your employees by understanding the condition and the reasonable steps you can take to help workers manage their symptoms.  

Safe work Australia has outlined a guide on ‘Simple steps you can take to support your workers’:

1. Build a supportive workplace culture - Train managers to be supportive and react appropriately to concerns raised by employees. An employee experiencing endometriosis may not be comfortable disclosing their illness. However, a supportive environment may encourage them to share their health issues more confidently and enable managers to find ways of supporting them to stay engaged, productive and comfortable at work. 
2. Start a conversation – Although not all workers will want to discuss private and personal health issues, they may be more open to participate in a conversation when it is conducted in a supportive manner. 
3. Medical certificates – In most cases, symptoms of endometriosis will be ongoing. When an employee is suffering from an illness such as endometriosis, they may require varying periods of leave from work. This could include attending medical appointments, to undergo surgery or when they are generally too unfit to work. Practices may like to consider allowing workers an overarching medical certificate from their treating doctor recognising their illness rather than requiring a medical certificate for each occasion.  
4. Flexible work arrangements – A worker with endometriosis may be managing significant pain on a regular basis and/or undergoing treatment where they are required to attend multiple medical appointments for a period of time. Practices may wish to discuss formal or informal flexible working arrangements with the worker to support them during these periods. This could include a change in shift patterns or start and finish times, shorter hours, graduated returned to work, an agreed period of paid or unpaid time off or working from home where possible. 
5. Safe job modifications - Practices may wish to discuss possible job modification to support a worker with endometriosis such as altering responsibilities, reducing the pace of work, managing workloads or modifying workstations. 

Visit Endometriosis Australia website

Visit Safe Work Australia website

	Workplace Relations Support  We can help practice managers and owners by offering suggestions for helping staff managing an illness in your practice. You can contact us via phone (07) 3872 2222 and email support workplacerelations@amaq.com.au.
	Workplace Relations Toolkit  Subscribers to the WR Toolkit receive a suite of workplace policies and support where we can provide documentation to having difficult conversations with staff.
	Workplace Relations Consultancy Workplace Relations Consultancy can review or assist in developing procedures around managing illness in your workplace. It is important that workplaces are not perceived as discriminating against an individual due to an illness or disease they may have, by using our consultancy service, we can make sure you are not at risk of inadvertently discriminating.