M’sia Company Offers Once-a-Month Paid Menstrual Leave

Last Updated on 2023-05-08 , 11:40 am

For the ladies out there, there’s one pain that most of us know all too well.

Period pain.

And even beyond the pain, the entire experience of having your period can be absolutely devastating for some of us.

From killer cramps to headaches, back pain and nausea, it’s safe to say that periods affect most of our lives, just to different extents.

Thankfully, some companies have begun implementing a menstrual leave policy in recent months.

And one of these companies is Brutti & Besi, a sustainable company that manufactures furniture from Sabah, Malaysia.

Realised Impact of Menstrual Pain After Wife Went Through It

When speaking to New Straits Times, the company’s founder explained that he started to pay more attention to the issue of menstrual cramps and menstrual leave after seeing his wife struggle with severe period cramps for multiple years.

Mr Lukman Awaluddin, who founded Brutti & Besi in October 2020, mentioned that his wife, Ms Siti Faznur Abd Khaleq, initially told him that the pain was “normal”,

However, as time passed, the 29-year-old noticed that Ms Siti, 33, was experiencing more and more pain.

In fact, it even got to a point where she could not carry out her daily activities.

As such, the couple, who are also business partners, decided to see a doctor.

The doctor then found a 10cm-long uterine fibroid in Ms Siti, which was the cause of her pain.

Thankfully, doctors were able to remove it from Ms Siti’s body, alleviating her pain.

Through this experience, Mr Lukman realised that menstrual cramps are a serious issue that many people tend to ignore or sweep under the rug.

Decided to Learn More About Menstrual Leave Policy to Implement It in Own Company

Afterwards, he and Ms Siti carried out research and found out how other countries and workplaces utilise menstrual leave policies to allow their employees to take time off work.

The couple also evaluated other factors such as implementation, its impacts on production, other key performance indicators and whether there were “possible drawbacks” or not.

Ultimately, they realised that the menstrual leave scheme would be optimal for the company, with one reason being the importance of showing care towards their employees.

He also harped on the importance of collaborating with their employees to build trust between both parties.

Apart from that, Mr Lukman explained that he believes that his employees will have a higher level of productivity at work after being well-rested.

Additionally, he pointed out that asking employees to obtain a medical certificate (MC) “makes no sense” as the employee would still have to travel and wait to see a doctor, which would not help improve her condition at that point in time.

Another Employee Also Asked to Take Leave Due to Cramps

Another instance where Mr Lukman and Ms Siti were faced with this issue was when Ms Dg Nuriah Anis Abd Majid, one of their new employees, asked to take medical leave.

When explaining her situation, the 23-year-old revealed that she was suffering from serious period pain.

Mr Lukman added that this incident occurred around the same time when Ms Siti discovered her uterine fibroid.

Ultimately, the couple instructed her to go on “unrecorded leave”.

This also prompted the couple to engage in more conversations with Ms Siti’s female friends and her gynaecologist, which allowed them to better understand how most women go through menstrual pain to different degrees.

How the Menstrual Leave Policy Works in the Company

After finalising their plans and insights, Mr Lukman and Ms Siti decided to implement a one-day menstrual leave policy in their company.

This would allow employees to take one day’s worth of leave off every month when they experience severe cramps or effects from their period.

The rest would be counted towards their medical leave if they needed to take multiple days’ leave.

In total, employees at Brutti & Besi have 14 days of medical leave every year.

Regarding their policy, Mr Lukman emphasised that it is still a work in progress.

He also expressed how he hopes that the system will not be taken advantage of and that his main goal is to encourage trust and acceptance within his company.

In particular, he said that he hopes to contribute to the destigmatisation of period-related conversations and remove the shame surrounding women taking leave during their periods.

As for the company’s productivity, he gave an example using Ms Nuriah Anis, who is part of the creative team, by saying that he would help operate the company’s social accounts and answer enquiries.

Eventually, he hopes to expand his seven-man team to make such a scheme more effective and efficient.

With regards to that, the company is actually expecting ten more employees to join them by the end of the year.

He also said that he would observe the effects of this policy and may even implement the same policy in another company that he owns, which happens to be a cleaning company with all female employees.

Benefits of Menstrual Leave: Employee’s Perspective

When speaking about the benefits of menstrual leave, Ms Nuriah Anis pointed out that period pain not only causes physical discomfort but also impacts women mentally.

In turn, this would cause a dip in productivity and quality of work produced.

She recalled how her boss quickly approved her request to leave work early when she was in extreme levels of period pain at work. She also had a headache at that time.

Ms Nuriah Anis added that although she does not experience pain often, the pain is extremely severe whenever she experiences it.

Symptoms that she experiences include fatigue, body ache, diarrhoea, nausea and severe pain.

This would cause her to take MCs since her productivity would be badly affected.

As such, she expressed her support towards her company’s menstrual leave policy and said that it would allow greater efficiency in employees’ work in the long run since women employees do not need to force themselves to complete work when unwell.

Malaysia’s Stand on Menstrual Leave Policy

As of late, the topic of menstrual leave has been of much buzz in Malaysia.

Last May, New Straits Times reported the various attitudes towards the possibility of implementing menstrual leave.

Although some expressed support by saying that it would increase women’s health rights at work, others pointed out that it could have negative impacts on the employment rate of women.

An Instagram poll by NST also showed that around 90% of respondents were in support of the implementation of a menstrual leave policy in Malaysia.

Thereafter, Malaysia’s Human Resources Ministry announced that it would encourage government-linked companies and private firms to roll out their own menstrual leave policies before the government officially passes a bill requiring them to do so.

Regarding this, Mr Lukman expressed how he hopes to encourage other firms to do the same as him.

He also revealed that his friends have since contacted him to learn more about his policy.

Apart from that, Mr Lukman said that he would try to get other companies to pursue a menstrual leave policy as a pilot project.

This would result in an increase in the amount of data illustrating the impacts of the policy, allowing them to improve the various aspects of the policy for the future.

Mr Lukman also expressed his hopes for the policy to become a national policy in the future.

Other Countries that Offer Menstrual Leave

Beyond Malaysia, Spain recently passed a bill in February this year to allow women to take menstrual leave, making it the first European country to implement it.

This bill now allows women to take three days of menstrual leave per month, and they can choose to lengthen it to five days if they happen to be going through extremely painful periods.

Other countries that offer menstrual leave include Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Zambia and Vietnam.

Join our Telegram channel for more entertaining and informative articles at https://t.me/goodyfeedsg or download the Goody Feed app here: https://goodyfeed.com/app/

Conditions that Cause Extreme Menstrual Pain

For the unaware, while cramps might seem like part and parcel of being a woman, severe cramps are actually not normal.

In fact, various conditions may cause severe pain, but women often go undiagnosed due to the lack of awareness surrounding these conditions and the common misconception that severe period pains are “normal”.

These conditions include endometriosis, an idiopathic condition that occurs when tissue cells similar to that of the uterine lining grow outside the uterus, adenomyosis, which occurs when the uterine lining “grows into the muscular wall of the uterus”, and more.

They are also fairly common, with endometriosis affecting around 190 million women and adenomyosis affecting “approximately 2-5% of adolescents with severely painful cycles”.