This Company Is Giving Employees Paid Menstrual Leave

PTO = Period Time Off.

Woman lying on bed
(Image credit: Getty Images)

You know those horrible few days before your period when the cramps are so bad you're just counting down the hours at work until you can curl up on the couch with a cozy blanket?

One British company is incorporating "period time" to deal with that very issue. 

Coexist, an education non-profit, will allow female employees to take time off for their periods, similar to sick days.  

"I have managed many female members of staff over the years and I have seen women at work who are bent over double because of the pain caused by their periods. Despite this, they feel they cannot go home because they do not class themselves as unwell. And this is unfair," Bex Baxter, one of the company's directors, told the Bristol Post. "At Coexist we are very understanding. If someone is in pain—no matter what kind—they are encouraged to go home."

Baxter is confident the company's new policy will increase productivity for the largely female staff. 

"Naturally, when women are having their periods they are in a winter state, when they need to regroup, keep warm and nourish their bodies.The spring section of the cycle, immediately after a period, is a time when women are actually three times as productive as usual," she told the outlet. "So it is about balancing work-load in line with the natural cycles of the body."

If winter state means needing to hibernate, binge on Fuller House, and eat every carb in sight, then we totally agree with this theory. 

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Kate Storey

Kate Storey is a contributing editor at Marie Claire and writer-at-large at Esquire magazine, where she covers culture and politics. Kate's writing has appeared in ELLE, Harper's BAZAAR, Town & Country, and Cosmopolitan, and her first book comes out in summer 2023.