Giving up the office housework

Do you feel guilty if you don’t volunteer? Are you penalized if you don’t follow the stereotype of doing the care work at work?

This article by Kelli Thompson is so important to consider. Women do most of the office housework but are not rewarded for it.

Not only does lack of recognition not support promotion efforts, but it also leads to burnout.

During the pandemic many women were also doing the majority of work caring for their team’s well being. Tasks that are also not included in performance reviews in 75% of companies.

When I speak with women who are feeling burned out I ask them to focus on what non essential work they can give up. For women in academia this is often committee work. One committee is ok, chairing 4 is too much! Often, we are doing way more than the minimum and if we give up the majority of these efforts, others will not even notice the difference. 

Yet it can feel uncomfortable not being supportive of larger institutional efforts. The issue is, if these efforts are unpaid, or not part of the promotion process then they are harming our ability to progress. I had a colleague who was only known for organizing the work parties by colleagues not her research expertise.

And without women in leadership positions, the key performance indicators, or key leadership traits will remain the same focused on competition and productivity rather than supporting well being and collaboration which actually precede productivity.

I understand the chicken and egg here; we are penalized if we do not meet the stereotypes for how women should act in the workplace. But without countering this stereotype nothing will change.

As women we need to minimize the non-rewarded or uncompensated work we do. Starting by tracking your hours spent on these tasks; it will be an eye opener. And although self promotion is another minefield for women, promoting the success of these tasks in the meantime through sharing lessons learned can be a good strategy.

Allies need to stand up when women are being volunteered for non essential roles.

And organizations need to have a system where all team members are fairly assigned high impact and low impact work.

And from a burnout perspective, if team well being becomes as KPI, I believe women’s role in supporting team well being will be more appropriately recognized and reducing burnout will become an essential organizational mission putting women in key roles not on the periphery.

Source: Women Do The Most 'Invisible Work' At The Office — And It's Getting Us Nowhere