From the course: Proven Success Strategies for Women at Work

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Requests to do invisible work

Requests to do invisible work

From the course: Proven Success Strategies for Women at Work

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Requests to do invisible work

- More often than not, women are the ones who help others when asked. Women plan the meetings, take the notes, organize the office party, and run the diversity initiative. In other words, women take on other types of office housework, a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. These thankless but necessary tasks keep organizations humming. But research shows that while women are expected to do more of this work, they fail to get credit for it. And then when they refuse, women suffer backlash. A common stereotype is that a man who doesn't help with these kind of tasks is busy but a woman who won't help is labeled selfish. So why is this office housework such a problem for women? Here are a few reasons. This extra work is often invisible to the people who count, your boss, your peers, and senior management. Invisible work takes time and attention away from things that are directly related to your performance, things like working with clients, running your…

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