The scale
1 in 6 people globally are affected by infertility. In a team of 100 people, approximately 6 are likely experiencing fertility challenges at any given time.
The evidence
39% of the time off taken for fertility treatment is logged as sick leave, and 23% as unpaid leave. 59% had not told their manager.
Source: Totaljobs with the Fawcett Society, September 2023 (n=2,000)
63% of employees do not know whether their employer has a fertility policy.
Source: Fertility Matters at Work UK research (with This Can Happen, funded by Ferring Pharmaceuticals), 2025
42% of UK employees undergoing fertility treatment feel pressure to remain at work throughout, the highest figure of any country in the 2025 international survey.
Source: Fertility Matters at Work, This Can Happen and Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Fertility Challenges at Work: International Insights, 2025
2 in 5 employees leave or consider leaving their jobs due to inadequate fertility support.
Source: Fertility Matters at Work, This Can Happen and Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Fertility Challenges at Work: International Insights, 2025
Only 27% of UK employers currently have a fertility-related workplace policy.
Source: CIPD. Workplace support for employees experiencing fertility challenges, investigations or treatment, 2023
£217 million: the estimated annual cost to UK employers of inadequate fertility workplace support.
Source: Fertility Matters at Work, with Ferring Pharmaceuticals and This Can Happen; cost analysis by Make An Impact CIC. The £217 Million Question, 2025
What good support actually looks like
The UK-based evidence on this is clear.
Research by Payne, Seenan and van den Akker (Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 2019), the most directly relevant published study for workplace contexts, found that absence of workplace policy and support significantly increased psychological distress in employees undergoing fertility treatment, and that most participants reported difficulty sustaining work performance and managing attendance throughout treatment.
In short: the support you give (or don't give) as a manager directly affects how someone gets through treatment. It also affects whether they stay with your organisation.
Why this matters for you as a manager
You will not always know when someone on your team is going through fertility treatment. Disclosure rates are low, for a mix of reasons including privacy, uncertainty about how the conversation will go, and the fact that fertility treatment is rarely covered in standard manager training.
What you can do is create conditions where people feel safe asking for flexibility when they need it, and where you have a framework to respond if they do disclose.
OccuFertility gives your employee the language and documents to tell you what they need, without requiring them to explain their medical situation in detail. The Line Manager Brief in their Tools tab is written for you.