Latest / Hiring & Firing with Fexingo: Recruitment, Performance, and Workforce Decisions / The Silent Tax of Uncompensated Work
Transcript
- Lucas: There is a specific kind of exhaustion that doesn’t show up in your quarterly performance review. It’s the fatigue of being the person who always takes the notes, who always remembers to order the lunch for the client meeting, who always drafts the welcome email for the new intern. Luna: Yeah, it’s the difference between doing the job you were hired for and doing the job that keeps the machine running, without any credit attached. Lucas: Exactly. And until recently, we’ve treated this as just part of being a team player. But looking at the latest data from McKinsey on organizational housekeeping, it’s clear this isn’t just about being helpful. It’s a structural drag on career velocity, and it hits certain groups significantly harder than others. Luna: So you’re saying that by asking people to do this invisible work, we are actively slowing down their promotion trajectory? Lucas: That’s the core argument. If you spend ten percent of your week organizing the holiday party or documenting a project you didn’t lead, you have less time to build the high-visibility portfolio pieces that managers look at when deciding who gets promoted next year. Luna: It’s basically a tax on your time, but one that the company refuses to pay for. Lucas: Right. And the irony is that the people doing this work are often the ones most likely to be promoted because they’re seen as reliable. So you get rewarded for taking on the burden that slows you down, which then makes you even more likely to be assigned more of it later. Luna: That is a vicious cycle. It’s like getting a bonus for working overtime that doesn’t actually count toward your base salary. Lucas: Let’s look at the numbers from that study. They found that women and minorities are up to thirty percent more likely to report doing these types of informal organizational tasks compared to white men in similar roles. Luna: Thirty percent is a huge gap. That’s not a rounding error; that’s a systemic pattern. Lucas: It is. And what’s interesting is that these tasks are rarely written into job descriptions. You won’t see 'responsible for scheduling team dinners' in the posting for a software engineer. So when those expectations arise organically, there’s no framework for negotiating them out. Luna: Which means if you push back, you look difficult. If you accept it, you lose time. There is no winning move. Lucas: Precisely. And I want to bring in a specific example from a mid-sized fintech company we spoke with last month. They realized their junior analysts were burning out faster than their senior counterparts. Luna: How did they figure out what was causing that disconnect? Lucas: They started tracking time allocation. They found that the junior analysts were spending nearly four hours a week on coordination tasks: setting up calendar invites, compiling data for slide decks, and managing the internal chat channels. Luna: Four hours is almost a full day. That’s significant opportunity cost. Lucas: It is. Meanwhile, their seniors were focused purely on strategy and client acquisition. The juniors weren’t building the skills that led to promotion because they were too busy keeping the lights on. Luna: So the company was essentially using their entry-level staff as free administrative support instead of investing in actual operational tools. Lucas: That’s exactly it. They hadn’t invested in proper project management software or dedicated coordinators, so the path of least resistance was to ask the smartest, most eager people in the room to pick up the slack. Luna: And those are usually the people who will say yes because they want to prove themselves. Lucas: Always. It’s the competence trap. The more capable you are, the more likely you are to be burdened with this extra load. And since it’s unpaid and untracked, it disappears from the record entirely. Luna: This feels like one of those things that seems small individually but creates massive drag collectively. Lucas: Agreed. And it’s not just about fairness. It’s bad for business. When your top performers are bogged down by low-value administrative work, the whole organization moves slower. Luna: So what is the fix? Do we just tell everyone to stop being helpful? Lucas: No, that’s not realistic. Team cohesion matters. But we need to make this work visible and equitable. One approach some companies are taking is rotating these responsibilities formally. Luna: Like a duty roster? So everyone shares the burden equally regardless of seniority? Lucas: Exactly. If you rotate who takes the notes or who plans the offsite, it stops becoming a default assignment for the most conscientious person in the room. It also gives everyone experience in those organizational skills, which can be valuable for leadership tracks. Luna: That makes sense. It normalizes the work and prevents it from sticking to one person indefinitely. Lucas: Another step is compensation. Some firms are now including 'team maintenance' as a formal component of performance reviews. If you spend twenty percent of your time on this, it should count toward your annual goals and potentially influence your bonus calculation. Luna: Putting a price tag on it changes the calculus completely. Managers start thinking twice before dumping extra admin on someone. Lucas: It does. And finally, investment in tools. If the friction of scheduling a meeting is high, people will volunteer to do it manually. But if the tool works seamlessly, that volunteerism drops naturally. Luna: Technology solving a human resource problem. I like that. Lucas: Before we dive deeper into how to implement these rotations, I want to pause for a moment. If today’s conversation has helped you see your own workflow a little differently, or given you language to talk about this with your manager, that’s exactly why we do this. Luna: These topics can be tough to navigate alone, so having a space to discuss them openly is really valuable for our listeners. Lucas: If you find value in these insights, the way we keep the show ad-free and independent is through listener support. You can help us continue by buying me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Even a small contribution helps us keep digging into these workplace dynamics and bringing you the research you need. Lucas: Thanks for listening. Now, let’s get back to that rotation strategy. How do you actually enforce it without making it feel like a punishment? Luna: Right, because if it feels forced, people will just resent the task instead of accepting it as shared responsibility. Lucas: Good point. The key is framing it as professional development rather than chore distribution. When you assign meeting notes to a junior employee, you frame it as an opportunity to learn how decisions are made across departments. Luna: So it becomes a strategic assignment, not just a clerical one. Lucas: Exactly. And you pair it with debriefing. After the notes are taken, the manager should sit down and ask, 'What patterns did you notice in how we make decisions?' This turns admin into analysis. Luna: That transforms the task entirely. It’s no longer just recording what happened; it’s studying the process. Lucas: Yes. And for larger teams, you can appoint a 'rotating secretary' for a quarter. This person is officially exempt from other low-value tasks during that time, so they can focus on documentation without falling behind on their core work. Luna: That protects their time while ensuring the work gets done. It balances the load fairly. Lucas: It does. And it signals that the organization values this function enough to give it dedicated bandwidth. Luna: I think many managers overlook that bandwidth trade-off. They assume people have spare cycles, but they usually don’t. Lucas: Spot on. Another layer is visibility. Make sure the person doing the rotation gets credit in public forums. If they compile the deck, they should be mentioned in the send-out email. Luna: Recognition is half the battle. If no one knows they did it, why bother doing it well? Lucas: Right. And if you can tie it to a tangible outcome, even better. If the notes lead to a new client insight or a process improvement, highlight that connection explicitly. Luna: Connecting the dots for them helps justify the time spent. It shows ROI on the administrative effort. Lucas: Absolutely. It moves the conversation from 'why are you wasting time on this' to 'how did this contribute to the win.' Luna: That’s a much healthier narrative. It aligns personal growth with team success. Lucas: It does. And over time, this builds a culture where everyone understands that keeping the team aligned is a core skill, not just a side gig. Luna: When it’s valued properly, it stops being a burden and starts being a competency. Lucas: Exactly. Which brings us back to the original problem. By valuing this work, we remove the inequitable tax that was slowing down our best performers. Luna: It’s a reminder that how we structure our daily routines has real long-term consequences for career trajectories. Lucas: It really is. Small changes in how we assign these invisible tasks can level the playing field significantly. Luna: So the question for leaders isn’t just who is doing the work, but whether that work is helping or hurting their future. Lucas: That’s a powerful question to ask in your next one-on-one. Check in on the administrative load. See if anyone is drowning in the details while trying to swim upstream. Luna: I think that check-in alone could change the dynamic for a lot of teams. Lucas: Hopefully. It’s about seeing the whole picture, not just the headline metrics. Luna: And sometimes the biggest bottlenecks are the ones we don’t write down. Lucas: True. So as you head into your week, keep an eye out for those silent taxes. Who is carrying the weight that isn’t showing up on the spreadsheet? Luna: A good habit to develop. Seeing the invisible work for what it is. Lucas: Exactly. And if you can redistribute that load, you might just unlock some hidden potential in your team.