For Employers
How do you know when a woman at work needs support?
She won't tell you. Here's how to see it, and what to do before it costs you both.
She won't tell you. Here's how to see it, and what to do before it costs you both.
She was forty-seven. She had been one of the top performers for years. Over the past year, she had been living through consistent insomnia, aches and pains, fatigue that came out of nowhere, anger that came out of nowhere, irritability, mood shifts, even forgetfulness.
She was doing everything perfectly. If you had asked her manager, without batting an eyelid, he would say: "Yeah, there's no issue with her."
Yet at the same time, she was considering quitting. Because life could not go on the same way. It was not just the work pressure. It was not just her family. It was the symptoms that kept adding up but did not make any sense. Every time she visited her GP, she was dismissed. The GP had started even refusing blood tests because they came back normal.
The first few sessions when she started with Srav Health, she cried after each one. She felt heard for the first time.
When she started implementing her plan and integrating it into her daily protocol, with those gentle nudges and reminders, what to eat, what supplements to take, she was even diagnosed through a specialist referral for a condition that would have gone unrecognised through the GP route.
Instead of quitting, she asked for a project reassignment. Today, she is back to thriving, and not considering leaving.
No woman is probably going to work and saying "I have all these symptoms and I can't." In fact, they may be overcompensating, both at home and at work. And this is what leads to the eventual burnout.
The cost of that single woman leaving is 200% of her salary to the organisation, and multifold to the society that has invested so much to build women's diversity at work.
This article is about the signals that are already there. If you are an employer who cares, you will at least know where to look.
She used to absorb the pressure. She used to be the calm one, the wise one around the room, knowing exactly what to say and when. But now she reacts differently. She is either quieter than usual, or she is starting to speak up and almost feels as if she is worked up, losing her composure.
What is actually happening is that her nervous system is imbalanced. There are layers behind this iceberg that you cannot see. This is not a personality change or sudden pressure highlighting some weakness in her. No. This is a buildup of lack of support over time.
Some things you may have heard her say, if you really listened:
You will find her working over weekends, working late nights, arriving early, or staying back late. This is not because she is trying to impress you. She is genuinely catching up for those lost hours and compensating against her own health, twofold.
The reality is that women may not seem less productive than men. In fact, they may be overcompensating. But that is not the point. The point is that they are running at full speed with half the tank, and they will burn out.
This presenteeism is costing you today five to ten times more than absenteeism, because especially in Southeast Asia, women do not say they are sick. They still show up. Presenteeism is when someone is showing up but not 100% productive.
But the real cost is losing that woman. And the bigger one is showing that you do not care, because now women will go to those who do.
This is the hardest signal to catch. But managers, if well trained, will still be able to see it.
She has been visiting doctors, multiple practitioners, taking time off to actually go see someone for help. But she is not getting the help she deserves or needs. And if she does get help, it is completely siloed. She has a therapist, and she has a GP, but they are not talking to each other. There is no coordinated care.
At this point, the burnout is starting to pile up. But it is not the kind of burnout where you just take the day off or sleep the night. It is now going towards depression. And this is potentially the last point where an intervention can still help.
The promotion. The new internal project. The leadership role. She says no, or she hesitates, or maybe even makes an excuse. Some women even say directly: "I'm not looking for a promotion."
You may think this is ambition fading, household responsibility coming up, or personal priorities shifting. But if you step back and look at the whole picture, there is something in her life that feels overwhelming. It is not a single dimension. It is not just physical health. She may need coaching alongside a nervous system reset and hormonal rebalancing.
She is not choosing to step back. The system has told her that growth is unsustainable for her. Without support, she does not see herself being able to bring her whole self to work again and again. If she feels the system is not supporting her, she will not be able to continue at top performance.
We see this woman after woman. They fight to the nail to get where they are. And after a point, they just cannot continue that way. They are disengaged, job hugging, or outright stepping back.
If you are reading this, you already want to act. You already want to support because you have seen how this impacts your organisation, and you mean to fix it. The question is how to support these women before the signals appear, not after.
Support is not just an insurance policy that allows her access to a GP or a therapy session. It is a proactive system that helps her navigate whatever she is going through, so her health does not become another job. She needs someone who connects the dots across her systems, her symptoms, her life stage, and her daily life. Proactively.
What is her nutrition plan? How does it change over time? What is her supplementation plan? What type of blood work does she need? What questions should she be asking? Which specialist should she be going to?
The time to act is much before any signals arise, because what you are actually creating is a cycle of growth. It is similar to investing in talent. You do not start investing in talent when you see performance dropping. You start investing the day they join the organisation.
She has an assigned practitioner she can trust. This is a clinical doctor she can go to anytime. Someone who knows her history, understands her context, and can activate the right care when she needs it. This is not a helpline. It is a personalised person who is available for her when she needs it. The barrier to getting there should be zero.
Managers are the closest to detect early signals and the first to encourage support. If they are well trained, they will not only detect the signals but also encourage seeking help, and that helps the overall team and culture. People want to work for such managers.
The manager is not trying to do harm. The manager is just not trained how to navigate someone who is coming back from pregnancy leave, or who is going through perimenopause or menopause. Without the language and training, they start behaving in ways that further amplify and deteriorate the situation for women.
When a woman already sees a full calendar built on the foundations of sleep, nutrition, and energy, her mind is tuned towards understanding that these are foundations for overall good health. She is not having to ask or think. These are moments of recognition where she is plugging back into the system and also connecting with the rest of the organisation, bringing her full self to work.
Normalising these conversations, what are the key pillars and foundations of health, creates an environment where support feels natural. And even if she goes through something debilitating, she does not feel that she has to hide it.
She will not engage if she thinks her HR manager or her manager will know exactly the symptoms she is going through, or that she is even seeking help. Employers should only see aggregate numbers: engagement rates at an aggregate level, participation rates, NPS scores, overall wellbeing. She should be fully assured that her data is anonymous.
An app or an employee benefit or an insurance programme that you have put in because country policies required it, or because it was the base minimum, is actually doing more harm. Insurance costs are going up 16.9% year on year. But your insurance premiums are not even getting utilised, because your employees are ending up in chronic and acute conditions due to the lack of proactive care in the first place.
Ignoring this is not an option. Adopting it is a strategic call.
Whether it is fertility, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause, hysterectomy, divorce, or marriage, these become automatic points where her care panel adjusts. So that coming back to work after having her baby is not a big decision. She feels supported, and her transition back is much smoother. As soon as she is promoted to a big role, the system kicks in again.
Instead of turning these moments into moments of crisis, they become moments of proactive support and nurturing.
For a company with 1,000 employees, roughly 500 women:
The cost of proactive care for 500 women in a 1,000-employee company is S$100K. The cost of not providing it is roughly S$3M. Clinical sessions on top are reimbursable through existing insurance.
We talk about what proactive care looks like and why women need a different benefit plan in a separate article. Read it here.
Companies offering coordinated women's health support see 22% longer retention of female employees, 40% or higher benefit utilisation versus 3% for traditional EAPs, and a massive improvement in productivity, engagement, and becoming an employer of choice.
We approach each engagement through understanding and listening. We would love to speak to you if you want to bring proactive, integrative care to the women employees in your company.
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