Spotlighting Your Invisible Work in a Busy World

Our Women@LinkedIn ERG is gearing up for Women’s History Month and IWD in March, and one of the topics that’s come up repeatedly is how much invisible work women are shouldering every day, both at home and at work. Raise your hand if you’re often asked to take notes in meetings, notice that you always organize the virtual offsite or party, or find yourself as the leader/mentor who people naturally come to more often because you say the right things to help them move forward?  Ever feel that a lot of the nurturing, collaborative, high-EQ traits that make women invaluable at work get dismissed as not important (or that focusing on these things is distracting to getting real work done)?

HBR reported in October that during the pandemic, women took on even more invisible  work, ranging from leading DEI initiatives to ensuring work-life balance and providing more consistent employee support. So this month we’re talking about what to do when you’re asked to shoulder invisible work that keeps teams together and often goes uncredited.  How can we shine a light on how important this work is? 

Let’s see what our experts around the globe have to say!

Executive Advisor, Diversity Strategist and LinkedIn Learning Unconscious Bias Instructor Stacey Gordon Suggests Documenting Frequency and Comparing Notes

Do you have agency to say something? Sometimes you’re the most junior person in the room and don’t feel as though that is something you can bring up. If that’s the case, document how often it happens, check to see if it’s happening to other junior individuals and then, even if you are the junior person in the room, you can use your documentation to provide facts to work from. You’ll be able to make the case for why this shouldn’t be you every time, how often you miss out on other opportunities because of it, how it hinders your progress and that it’s time to spread that responsibility among other team members. You may also want to discuss the positives – if there are any – and note that those opportunities should be shared as well.

LinkedIn VP of Trust  Tanya Staples Acknowledges the Compliment in the Ask, Sets Limits, and Highlights the Work in Context

This is a great question and one I know we all often struggle with. Here are a few thoughts on how to think about it:

Take it as a compliment. If you’re being asked to take on tasks--regardless of what they are--first take it as a compliment that your manager, your peers, and your colleagues have a high degree of trust in your abilities. Likewise, if people are reaching out to you to talk, it’s because you’re most likely providing tremendous value to them. You’re awesome and they all know it.

Know your limits. Now it’s all well and good to take it as a compliment, but you also can’t shoulder all the burden on your own. So know how much you can realistically take on without impacting your performance and your overall well being. And know that this can change. Sometimes you’ll have the energy to take on a lot, sometimes you’ll have the energy to take on a little. But know what your limits are so that when things come up, you can decide if they’re inside the limits or not.

This also applies when people are reaching out to you to talk. It’s really easy to respond right away and get sucked in to what they need without thinking about what you have to give at that moment in time. It’s perfectly fine to let a Teams or text message sit while YOU decide if you have enough in YOUR tank to help the other person. It’s also okay to set boundaries on your time so the other person knows how much time you have to give them. “Happy to chat, I have 15 minutes between 345 and 4, would that work?” Or “Saw your note, I’m tied up at the moment, but let me get back to you later today and we can figure out a time to chat.”

Say no, ask for help, or delegate. First, it is totally okay to say no, ask for help or delegate. Here are some ways you can do it: “Thank you so much for asking. I love that you have so much confidence in me. I have a number of really important priorities right now so I’m going to need to say no. Do you need suggestions for who might be able to help?”

“Oh, you’re so kind to ask and think of me! Right now I have a lot going on, but I’d be happy to do X part of it, if you can find someone else to do Y part. Do you need suggestions about who could do Y?”

“I love organizing an offsite, but I’ve organized the past 3 and I think it would be a great opportunity for someone else to give it a try to bring a fresh perspective and help others be leaders in the team.”

“Sure, I’m totally open to organizing the offsite, but I think it might be more inclusive and more fun if a few of us work together.” Depending on the situation, you can then ask for volunteers or work with your manager to voluntell others based on where you need help.

“It’s sometimes hard for me to focus on the meeting and take notes at the same time. I appreciate that the format and structure I use really resonates for the team. How about I do a bit of training with the others and put together a rotation schedule so everyone can share in the note taking fun?”

“Thanks for thinking of me! I have a lot going on right now. I’m happy to take lead, but in full transparency, I’m going to need to delegate parts of this to a few other folks on the team.”

Take the credit, but put it in context. Every year during the performance cycle, we’re asked to do self reflections. Now, no manager wants to see an inventory of every task you did during the year, but what is helpful is for you to frame up the role you have in being a leader in the team, which often means helping to set the culture and helping to facilitate collaboration. When you write  yourself reflection, take some time to write a short paragraph that highlights this work:

Team Leadership, Culture and Collaboration: Organized 3 offsites, which helped build culture and collaboration across the team. Took meeting notes and action items weekly for the team to ensure focus, which helped with clear communication and collaboration for all team members.

Know when it’s too far. So all this is all well and good, but I do want to acknowledge that sometimes you’ll run into individuals who ask you to do certain things because you are the female on the team. It’s a bit ridiculous that we’re still talking about this in 2021, almost 2022, but I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t call it out. Here are a few ways to address this:

“Would you mind if I share an observation with you?  I notice that when there are team tasks, such as note taking and organizing offsites, you often ask me instead of others on the team. Can you help me understand why you delegate to me instead of others?” <leave space for the person to answer.> 

“I have to be honest that sometimes it feels like you ask me to do these things because I’m the only female on the team.” Hard convo to have, and easier said than typed, but it’s completely okay to have the convo. Just be sure to be open and collaborative and try to avoid being defensive or assuming negative intent until you’ve heard their POV (again, easier said than done).

In the cases that I really hope are exceptionally rare, when you’re outright asked to do something because you’re female, have a frank conversation that it’s not okay and reach out to Employee Relations (ER) to share what happened. Depending on the situation, they may coach you on how to have the conversation with the person directly, but by reaching out to HR it’s documented and that way if the same behaviour is happening, has happened or does happen to others, your voice will have helped the greater good.

DiverseK Founder, Instructor, and Speaker Khaulat Ayomide Abdulhakeem Gets The Work  Started So Others Can Contribute

This is a very important question! At the beginning, I would always take up the tasks and do them because I was happy to be able to support the team, but over time, I realized it was additional responsibility so I found a better way to handle such situations. For example, when asked to take notes in meetings, I would take the first step and create a Google Docs file and suggest everyone add important points over the course of the meeting. In the case of organizing events, I would take the first step to research all that is to be done and give everyone on the team something to  be responsible for.

Overall, when I'm asked to shoulder invisible work, I take the initial step to make it easy for everyone to contribute to making it a success.

LinkedIn Manager of Content Stephanie Evans Suggests Not Letting Invisible Work Become Part of Your Baseline

I've learned that hard work can only take you so far. The more competent you are, the more work you're asked to do. And it can often be invisible work that just becomes part of your baseline workload. 

At this mid-point in my career, I now focus more on relationships than tasks. This means: asking for help & allyship and sharing the wealth of opportunities. I've also learned how to better prioritize & communicate workload to my manager.   

In general, when asked to do more work, I express gratitude for the opportunity and ask for a little time to consider the ask. I look for ways to make invisible work more visible. For ongoing work asks (like documentation or offsite planning), I proactively suggest a rotation to share the work. It brings visibility to the task's workload and distributes it more evenly. Alternatively, I will bring it to my manager and discuss what I would need to drop to make room for this new work. This creates more of an 'either/or' (rather than an 'and') for extra work. Try to frame this as a collaborative exercise, rather than 'I can't do any more work!'...which I used to say when I hit a wall from saying yes too quickly and too often.

Related, I enlist allies to speak up when they see work given to a single person or demographic (e.g. women being asked to take notes or plan parties). I talk to peers about what their goals are and suggest their name when an opportunity comes my way that I think could be great for them. This helps others grow along with me.  

Focusing on strong relationships, boundaries, and priorities helps you do your most important work and build up others.  

Shopify Diversity & Belonging Lead Jim Chan Suggests Asking Yourself Questions About How the Work Serves You

Research shows that women and people of color disproportionately do the invisible work which is problematic in many ways, one of which being detrimental to one's career progression and mobility. When I'm asked to do this work on a regular basis, I often ask myself three questions:

1. Fulfillment: Do I enjoy the "invisible" work of keeping teams together? That is, do I naturally get fulfillment from mentoring others, organizing the virtual offsite, etc. Often times if the answer is yes that I get energized, feel a sense of fulfillment and its done on my own terms, it's empowering. It allows me to cultivate a sense of strength. If the answer is no, I would have to re-evaluate the asks that come my way.
2. Appreciation: Do I feel valued by my contributions to the team in this way? If my team appreciates my contributions to drive team cohesion through recognition or rewards and I feel that they are sufficient-- great! If not, what is missing? Doing the invisible work is part of being a "team player" but if it is not valued in the same way as building a strategic recommendation for the business (that leads to promotions and rewards), then I might consider trying to change this. Ultimately, we're in the workplace to add value to the business and to drive growth in ourselves / our careers. If it's not meeting the latter needs, there needs to be a conversation. 
3. Future: Do I feel doing invisible work is needed so I can be successful in the long term / future? In some industries and functions, taking notes or being the person to organize events is a starting point to build trust on the team. In other situations, if you're always the one taking notes, it can potentially lead to slower career growth, less interesting work, etc.

Ultimately, navigating this dynamic is very personal and needs to center your feelings of fulfillment, appreciation and future thinking. If the answers come back as some form of "no" to the above three questions, some tactics that may work include:

• Talk to your manager, as it is part of their job to ensure that you feel a sense of fulfillment, appreciation and have a path towards growth in the future. You might say something like "I really have appreciated the opportunities to mentor X, Y, and Z individuals on the team. But I'm concerned that it's taking away from the time I can spend doing work that I was hired to do. (e.g., building strategic recommendations for the business). Can we talk about ways we can balance these asks more?"
• Share your feelings with a close ally on the team and ask if they can help shed light on the issue in a team meeting. The ally that you trust and you know will likely be supportive can say something like. "I noticed X always takes notes in our team meetings. Can we rotate it across the team so X can focus on listening and contributing to the meeting?
• Leverage the relationships and skills you develop from doing the "invisible" work to add value to your core work. Sometimes even when you speak to your manager or your allies, things may not change immediately (unfortunately). But if you can leverage the unique position you're in to drive forth your core work, that could be an intermediate solve. For example, because you mentor two team members, you have the relationship to ask them for their feedback/perspective and leverage their expertise in a different domain to uplevel your work. Or if you take notes in meetings often, take time to connect the dots post-meeting and share insights over email. These examples aren't ideal but are a chance for you to make the best of a tough situation.

At the end of the day, no one person should disproportionately be "voluntold" to do the invisible work. And you should feel empowered to make decisions based on your circumstances. Good luck!

So Now What?

If you’d like to learn more on this topic, check out these LinkedIn Learning courses: 

Proven Success Strategies for Women at Work

Fighting Gender Bias at Work

Inclusive Female Leadership

Becoming an Ally to All

Own It: The Power of Women at Work

Women Transforming Tech: Breaking Bias

What advice would you add? Thank you for speaking up! Please click subscribe to join us again next month, as we’re here to be yours in making workplaces better for women.