The invisible hurdle to workplace gender equality

Buying a birthday card, chairing a committee, organising holiday parties, and writing up minutes are some ‘non-promotable work’ tasks that are important to organisational functioning, but unlikely to be rewarded or even recognised. Many, if not most working women are assigned or accept these tasks as part of their job but in reality, these could be holding them back as their time and energy is being disproportionately expended on these thankless tasks.

A new book—The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work, by Lise Vesterlund, Economics Professor, University of Pittsburgh, has spent years researching public and private sector roles and discovered that female employees were often burdened with ‘office housework’ and low-value assignments which caused them to be overlooked for promotions and pay increases.

The invisible hurdle to workplace gender equality is alarmingly apparent. Vesterlund’s research discovered that, regardless of seniority, the average woman spent 200 hours more on ‘non-promotable work’ tasks than the average man. For junior women, these assignments came at the expense of more meaningful work whilst for senior women, they worked more hours in total as they spent the same amount of time on promotable tasks as senior men.

The reason for the imbalance as Vesterlund explains is two-fold, “Not only are women asked to do this work more often than men; when asked, they are more likely to say yes. Men are also more strategic in the non-promotable work that they do, selecting the tasks that will get them access and connections.”

Vesterlund argues that the solution is for employers to reflect on how non-promotable tasks are allocated within their organisations so that it can be made fairer. Tasks could be assigned at random or on a rota basis or aligned to existing responsibilities and skillsets. Vesterlund also pointed to men’s role in challenging the status quo, “Men can help to redress the balance by putting themselves forward for non-promotable tasks before a female colleague volunteers, or by taking some off her plate.”