Are you getting lumped with ‘invisible’ tasks at work?

Unless it’s in the job description, menial tasks can wear employees down over time and do nothing to boost their career, experts say.

They’re called non-promotable tasks and include things like organising birthday celebrations or farewell morning teas, showing new employees around, revamping social activities and watering plants.

Life and career consultant Liz Barry says they often fall on the same people if we don’t learn to say no sometimes.

Frog Recruitment managing director Shannon Barlow says NPTs “keep a workplace ticking” but don’t lead to promotion.

“If you're the quiet organiser or morale booster, those efforts can often go unnoticed while others move ahead on higher profile work.”

It looks different depending on the job. For instance, NZ Nurses Organisation president Kerri Nuku says Māori nurses often become the go-to for de-escalation or mediating for whānau and offering karakia when patients die.

Regional nurses might help patients with transport or medication, while senior nurses support trainees with pastoral care and peer reviews.

Teachers face similar challenges. Bridget Chilton, who has taught in North Canterbury for 13 years, estimates she works about 55 hours a week — far more than the typical 25 hours she's paid for. Although her contract says she could be expected to work up to 40 hours, she gets paid the same regardless of whether it's more or less. The unpaid time goes to organising and running extracurricular activities (for some schools this is paid).

She recalls designing and sewing about 100 kapa haka uniforms during her Christmas break.

While parents are appreciative and teachers love seeing the kids shine, the stress that goes into running these activities is often unrecognised, she says.

“A lot of them are non-promotable. They're just what you do” to be an attractive school and benefit children’s development, she says.

Barry warns that once people expect you to do a task, it’s hard to stop, and these tasks don’t help with raises, promotions, or job security.

Doing all this “invisible” work can lead to burnout and feeling undervalued, she says. For employers, they risk damaging engagement, equity and retention.

“If it's not clear how these efforts are actually connecting to career growth or actually benefiting you, not just everyone else, then that can cause some conflict there,” she says.

Chilton also worries it makes professions like teaching undesirable.

Research by five American women, who set up ‘The No Club’ 12 years ago, found women are more likely to be asked — and say yes — to work that advances the organisation but doesn’t help their careers.

Club co-founder Linda Babcock told Women Amplified podcast there’s also research that shows “people of colour get assigned to do these tasks more than people who are white”.

Barry, who works mainly with women, says women are conditioned to be “helpers”.

“We have our paid employment, and we come home and do the second shift, and it's just expected. We have been role modelled it from our parents, our mothers, and our grandmothers. It's in media. It's everywhere.”

Barlow says NPTs are not always a bad thing. Doing something to create a better environment at work - from time to time - can foster a sense of belonging.

“Given the fact that we're spending more waking hours at work than at home, there's an altruistic side to pitching in.”

Some jobs, like investment banking, expect you to go above and beyond but compensate you well.

But for those with a duty of care, like nurses, that’s hard, Nuku says. She recommends keeping track of your work and raising it with your employer and union.

Barry suggests being mindful of the knee-jerk reaction to say yes to everything. Take a moment to think: “How important is this? Can I handle it? What’s my bandwidth?”

Understand that you will be held responsible for taking on more work too, she says.

If you want to say no, Barry recommends being frank with your manager: “You know what, I'd be really good at that, and I'm interested. However, I'm at capacity right now. Is there something you'd like me to offload? How important is it that me in particular chairs that committee? Or is there someone else you could give it to?”

Don’t wait for performance reviews — bring it up regularly, Barry advises.

Barlow says employers should also watch who they’re assigning extra work to and rotate it.

Publicly recognising workers for these tasks — and acknowledging they’re not part of the job description — can make a big difference.