A new book has been published that argues that “non-promotable work” – the kind that is important to organisational functioning, but unlikely to be rewarded or even recognised – is the “invisible hurdle to gender equality in the workplace”, with women’s time and energy being disproportionately expended on thankless tasks. Such roles include writing up minutes from meetings, assembling entries for awards, serving on committees, selecting interns, organising holiday parties and shopping for leaving gifts.

Says Lise Vesterlund, an economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author of The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work:

“It’s not that women are do-gooders, who want to help out the group. They’re doing it because we’re expecting them to.”

Vesterlund and three friends wrote the book after finding that, across the public and private sectors, and a wide range of roles, female employees were shouldering the burden of “office housework” and low-value assignments, causing them to miss out on promotions and pay increases.

Says Vesterlund:

“We think this is a central part of why women are not advancing at similar rates to men. From teachers to engineers, investment bankers to checkout clerks, there is not an industry, occupation or rank that we have looked at where we didn’t see this being a problem.”

Their analysis of employee hours at a large consultancy firm found that regardless of seniority, the median woman spent about 200 more hours on non-promotable work each year than the median man – equating to approximately one month’s worth of “dead-end tasks”.

For junior women, this came at the expense of meaningful work, with junior men spending about 250 more hours each year on high-value work such as with clients. Senior women, on the other hand, spent the same amount of time on promotable tasks as senior men – meaning they just worked more hours in total.

The reason for this imbalance is twofold, says Vesterlund: not only are women asked to do this work more often than men; when asked, they are more likely to say yes. One experiment found that in a mixed-gender group, women were 48% more likely to volunteer to take on a task than men were. (Men volunteered more often when in a group without women.)

This collective expectation, reports The Guardian, has been internalised by managers and employees alike, derailing individual careers and entrenching inequality. Vesterlund’s research found that employees with less productive assignments were paid less and found themselves unable to increase their pay through negotiation. “Men are also more strategic in the non-promotable work that they do, selecting the tasks that will get them access and connections,” Vesterlund says.

A 2021 report by McKinsey found women to be taking the lead on employee wellbeing and diversity, equity and inclusion – often without thanks, even as such initiatives were trumpeted through the pandemic. “It is clearly seen as being critical work but it is not being rewarded or recognised,” says Vesterlund. In fact, company commitments to equal representation – such as on panels or committees – can pile the responsibility on to just a few individuals, says Vesterlund, with minority ethnic women in particular “taxed” for their underrepresentation.

Vesterlund and her co-authors argue that until the problem of non-promotable work is tackled, inequalities will persist. The switch to hybrid working, often presented as increasing flexibility, could in fact worsen the problem by making women less visible. A Deloitte survey found that nearly 60% of those working remotely felt excluded from meetings, while 45% said they did not have enough exposure to leaders.

Vesterlund says the solution is for employers and employees to reflect on how non-promotable tasks are allocated within their organisation so that it can be made fairer. Managers could assign tasks at random or by a rota, split them between multiple employees, or align them with existing responsibilities or skills.

Says Vesterlund:

“The solution is to change the way we distribute work: once we give men and women equal opportunities to get assignments, many things will fall into place.”