For Employers
Your people are carrying this through your organisation. Right now.
1 in 6 people of reproductive age experience fertility challenges, according to the World Health Organisation. In a team of thirty, that is likely five people. The question is not whether this is happening in your organisation. It is whether anyone knows — and whether the culture is safe enough for anyone to say so.
I work with employers who want to close that gap. Not just with policy, but with the kind of human understanding that policy alone cannot provide. I know what this costs from the inside. Seven of carrying it through a career. Seven years in active infertility turmoil and never ending treatments. I'm out the other side, but in a different way than when it started.
The evidence
The cost of doing nothing is not zero.
It is just invisible on the balance sheet.
people of reproductive age experience fertility challenges globally
World Health Organisation, 2023
of employees msay fertility treatment affected their mental wellbeing
Fertility Matters at Work / Ferring, 2025
consider leaving their jobs during fertility treatment
Fertility Matters at Work
average cost of replacing one mid-level employee
CIPD
would be attracted to an employer offering fertility support
Fertility Matters at Work / Ferring, 2025
say their workplace currently offers no fertility-related support
Fertility Matters at Work / Ferring, 2025
Before the offer
Five questions every employer should be able to answer honestly.
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1.
Does anyone in your organisation know that a colleague is carrying this right now — or is the performance of okayness so practised that it is invisible?
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2.
Do your managers have the specific language for this experience — or do they fall back on the wrong words because nobody has given them the right ones?
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3.
Is your fertility policy something people know about before they need it — or does it sit in a handbook nobody has read?
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4.
Is flexibility applied consistently across the organisation — or does it depend on which manager someone happens to have?
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5.
Have you created a culture where disclosure feels like a choice — rather than a risk to someone's position or progression?
If the answer to most of those is no, or I don't know — this is exactly where to start.
Why I'm the right person for this
I didn't study this. I lived it. For seven years.
I spent twenty years building a career in marketing — always in-house, across multiple sectors. For seven of those years I was also navigating fertility treatment. Clomid, IUI, IVF, and eventually donor egg conception.
In the beginning I hid everything. Annual leave used for appointments that couldn't be explained. No disclosure. No support sought or offered. I became expert at the performance of okayness.
For approximately 12 to 18 months during the middle of the journey, I was also experiencing severe workplace bullying by two female line managers. I was told by a people forum representative that it was the worst case they had seen or supported. That bullying made speaking up about what I was going through impossible. At one point I stopped moving forward with fertility tests because I couldn't carry both. Eventually I collapsed at work — the weight of the journey, a house move, and the sustained bullying had accumulated beyond what I could carry. I left through sick leave.
I felt ashamed I couldn't handle it all. That shame — the belief that you should be able to manage — is one of the most common and most harmful things this experience does to people at work.
I pivoted to training and teaching marketing apprenticeships. Better leaders. More flexibility. People I could confide in. I started speaking more openly. Then redundancies came — three in total, including both my husband and I being made redundant simultaneously during the donor egg process.
The employer during donor egg treatment was different. A small business. They knew what was happening. When the call came that treatment could finally go ahead, they offered empathy at the moment I needed it most. We negotiated together — a combination of sick leave and annual leave for the treatment day and the day after. That negotiation — the acknowledgement that this is a person, not a process — removed real pressure at the hardest point.
I know what it costs to hide this. I know what it costs when the environment is unsafe. And I know what a manager who says the right thing at the right time can mean to someone carrying this invisibly through a working day. I know all of this from the inside. Not from research.
At a glance
| Fertility journey | Seven years. Clomid, IUI, IVF, donor egg conception. |
| Marketing career | Twenty years in-house across multiple sectors. |
| Teaching | Marketing apprenticeships — trainer and assessor. |
| Coaching | Working towards Level 5 Diploma in Effective Coaching and Mentoring. |
| Businesses | Becky Cann Coaching (1:1 fertility coaching) and Create & Cope (digital community and toolkit). |
| UK based | Available nationally for talks and virtually for coaching. |
Two businesses. One offer. Three ways to work together.
Start where it makes sense for your organisation.
A 45–60 minute talk or workshop that makes people feel something, not just learn something. Built from lived experience, not theory. For managers, HR teams, wider employees, or a combination. Tailored to your organisation and your audience.
- Live delivery — in person or virtual
- Q&A included
- How to Show Up guide included as a leave-behind for every attendee
- Suitable for: fertility awareness weeks, wellbeing events, manager training days, all-staff sessions
Many organisations start with a talk. What follows is often a request for something managers can refer back to. That is the handbook.
Plain-language guidance for managers and HR professionals — what to say, what not to say, and how to have the conversation before it is needed. Real scenarios. Suggested responses. The specific language that policy documents never include.
- Covers: the first conversation, flexibility and appointments, what not to say, how to support without overstepping
- Includes real scenarios with suggested responses based on lived experience
- Digital and print-ready versions
- Can be branded to your organisation
The handbook gives managers a reference. The coaching retainer gives employees somewhere to go.
Ongoing specialist coaching for employees navigating the fertility journey. Trauma-informed and emotions-led coaching. This is not therapy or councelling, which should be found via other routes. This is forward focus coaching through the journey, somewhere to put the weight of it, with someone who has been through seven years of this and knows what the inside of it looks like.
- Minimum three employees, minimum three-month commitment
- 1:1 sessions with Becky — remote or in person (where possible)
- No clinical outcomes promised or implied — emotional support throughout the journey
- Confidential — HR receives aggregate participation data only, never individual content
The Create & Cope subscription — for your employees directly
Alongside the employer offer, your employees can access Create & Cope's digital toolkit subscription directly. Five toolkits for every moment in the fertility journey, the Partner Pack for couples, and a growing content library. From £15 per month. Something they can reach for on the hardest days, without having to ask their employer for it.
Share the link with your team → createandcope.co.uk/subscribeWhat good actually looks like
Beyond policy...
Drawn from seven years of being on the inside of it.
Flexibility applied consistently — not just on paper
Many fertility appointments arrive with little notice. Good employers do not require staff to use annual leave for this. More than that — good employers apply flexibility consistently across teams, not depending on which manager someone happens to have. Inconsistent application is its own form of inequality.
A culture where disclosure feels like a choice
The person going through fertility treatment should be able to choose whether to tell their employer — not feel forced to hide it to protect their position or professional reputation. Creating that culture requires more than a policy. It requires visible signals from leadership.
Managers with the specific language
The manager who asks the right question at the right time can change everything. This requires not just awareness training but the specific, human language of this experience — what to say, what not to say, and how to hold the conversation without overstepping.
A policy people know about before they need it
A fertility policy nobody knows exists is not a benefit. It needs to be visible, actively communicated, and in place before anyone in the organisation needs it.
Specialist support beyond the EAP
Generic Employee Assistance Programmes have their place and have been a great respurce for myself in the past. But I felt they did have specialist understanding of the fertility journey. Someone who has been through seven years of it is not a luxury. It is the difference between support that lands and support that does not.
Negotiation, not just process
The most helpful employer I worked with during my own treatment did not have a perfect policy. But they sat with me and we worked something out together. That negotiation — the acknowledgement that this is a person, not a process — removed more pressure than any formal provision could have. They know who they are 😉.
Start here
Something useful, before we talk.
Download the How to Show Up guide — free
A plain-language guide for anyone who wants to support a colleague going through fertility treatment and is not sure what to say. Built from seven years of being on the receiving end of both the wrong words and the right ones. Share it with your managers. Share it with your team.
Download the How to Show Up guideReady to talk?
Tell me where your organisation is and I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.