Halcyon Days®: Getting Women’s Health in the Workplace Right

Psychological safety doesn’t begin in the workplace. Most women arrive already carrying years of silence, shame, dismissal and self-doubt about their health. In this episode, Sarah explores why many organisations are unknowingly starting from a place of unsafety when it comes to women speaking about their bodies — and how we change that. We explore how period shame, medical gaslighting, fertility...

Why Menopause Support Matters at Work (and Why It’s Never “Just a Women’s Issue”) In this episode We dive into the real impact of menopause and mid-life transitions in the workplace - not just for women, but for teams, culture, and organisational performance. This is the episode that brings the human story together with the business case: engagement, retention, productivity, presenteeism, fairness...

Why do so many brilliant people - especially women - leave their careers in their 30s, 40s and 50s? In this episode, Sarah explores how life-stage transitions such as fertility, pregnancy, caregiving, perimenopause and menopause quietly shape our workplaces. She explains that this isn’t about women being “less” or needing extra leave - it’s about systems that fail to recognise that everybody exper...

Being at work isn’t always enough - sometimes showing up while struggling can cost more than being absent. Financially, emotionally and energetically. In this episode, Sarah dives into the hidden cost of presenteeism, exploring how things like menstrual pain, period symptoms and hormonal imbalances affect focus, performance, and wellbeing at work. Through real-life stories and anonymised client ex...

Women’s health is too often seen as a “nice-to-have” workplace benefit—but the truth is, it’s a business-critical KPI. In this episode, Sarah explores how menstrual health, menopause, fertility struggles, and baby loss directly influence absenteeism, retention, productivity, and employee engagement. Discover why ignoring women’s health costs businesses money, and how framing support as both risk m...

In this episode, we explore the pressing reasons behind the UK's Women's Health Strategy, shedding light on systemic healthcare disparities and their profound impact on women's professional lives. Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual harassment, stalking, and domestic abuse in the workplace, which some listeners may find distressing. Please take care while listening. Key Top...

In this episode, I demystify the UK Government’s Women’s Health Strategy — what it is, where it came from, and what it means for your organisation. We’ll explore how this major policy shift is placing new expectations on employers, and why it’s time to move from passive awareness to proactive planning. You’ll learn: * The key aims of the Women’s Health Strategy * How and why workplaces are being i...

Welcome to the very first episode of Halcyon Days®: Getting Women’s Health in the Workplace Right – the podcast for HR professionals, managers, and workplace changemakers who care about supporting their teams in smart, compassionate, and genuinely effective ways. In this introductory episode, your host Sarah Darwen, founder of Halcyon Women’s Health®, shares the personal story that shaped her miss...