BS ISO 45010: a guide to cycle-aware working

What is cycle-aware working?

Cycle-aware working means building menstrual health literacy into how an organisation supports its people. It includes flexible scheduling where possible, sensitive conversations, access to menstrual products and education about individual variation. Personal health information stays private, and employees choose whether to ask for support.

People’s experiences vary. Support starts with listening to individuals and reviewing the systems around them. A cycle phase should never be used to assign work or judge someone’s ability.

Why menstrual health is a workplace issue

The evidence is consistent and hard to ignore:

• In a 2022 study of 1,867 women, 89.3% reported a moderate to severe negative impact of their cycle on energy at work, and 45.2% had missed at least one day of work in the previous year because of it.^[1]
• CIPD research (2023) found two-thirds of women with cycle-related difficulties experience a negative impact at work — yet just 12% of organisations provide any form of menstrual health support.^[2]
• Retention is on the line: CIPD found 3% of women have already left a job over a lack of menstrual health support, with a further 5% considering it.^[2]
• The appetite for support is there: research found 94.4% of women would or might participate in menstrual health programming if their employer offered it.^[3]

These findings invite employers to review access to support and make menstrual health part of everyday wellbeing conversations.

BS ISO 45010: the current workplace guidance

BS ISO 45010 (ISO 45010:2026) — international workplace guidance on menstruation and menopause, published 7 September 2026, superseding the UK’s withdrawn BS 30416:2023.^[4] Its full title is Occupational health and safety management — Menstruation and menopause in the workplace — Guidance.

BS 30416:2023 was withdrawn and formally superseded by BS ISO 45010 on 7 September 2026. BS ISO 45010 is the current reference point for organisations reviewing their approach. It provides guidance and does not confer certification or an official BSI or ISO organisational rating.

What does the international guidance add?

• Disclosure and privacy: guidance on sharing personal information and protecting it.
• Global definitions: expanded terminology for an international workplace context.
• Practical actions: updated options that organisations can adapt, including small and medium-sized employers.
• A workplace charter: an annex with a template to help express commitments.
• Occupational health and safety: a cross-reference to ISO 45001 to connect this work with existing systems.
• Review and improvement: measuring and evaluating whether support works in practice.

Read BSI’s explanation of the transition. The full guidance is free to read online through ISO; downloadable and printed editions are available to purchase.

For your workplace, start by reviewing policies, culture, facilities, work design, manager awareness and ways to ask for support. Listen to employees and agree actions that fit your organisation’s resources.

How Nadi supports cycle-aware workplaces

Nadi works with organisations on exactly this journey, through workplace sessions and programmes: awareness sessions grounded in the evidence above, programmes that run over several cycles with structured feedback, and a full workplace audit covering facilities, existing support and policy using BS ISO 45010 guidance. Alongside the education, employees get practical tools — including Nadi itself, which adds each woman's four estimated cycle phases to the calendar she already uses, privately and without disclosure to anyone.

The aim is a workplace where people can ask for the support they need and managers have the knowledge to respond well.

For employers ready to move from literacy to a measured pilot, see the Nadi Workplace Cohort.

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Want the foundations first? Start with menstrual health in the workplace: the employer's guide or the four cycle phases. Questions about the evidence base are covered in the FAQs.