Equal pay for invisible work

I always love Women’s History Month—seeing all the celebratory posts and learning about women who made history, and are making history today.

Mixed in are the sobering reminders, like Equal Pay Day on the 14th—the day when the average woman will have finally made what their male equivalent earned at the end of last year. (The Equal Pay Days for some women—from LGBTQ+ women to Latinas—fall later in the year, all the way in November for Native Americans.)

Not only are women still paid less than men for the same work, but they are often asked to do additional work outside of their jobs that colleagues take for granted. Studies show that women are 44% more likely to do tasks that are essential but aren’t factored into promotions. Things like organizing the holiday party, re-organizing the supply closet, or choosing the birthday gift and sending around the card for people to sign.

The value of these activities is indisputable. Try working somewhere without them. But they come with no glory. I know from being the last one to leave the conference room, a bunch of half-empty coffee cups in my hands.

Even the more skilled contributions that women are more likely to do—like sending the follow-up email, organizing the charity fundraiser, or serving on the DEI committee—tend to be less acknowledged. And it’s not just because of rank or seniority. I know female senior executives who get assigned the routine administrative tasks at the end of every meeting.

This office housework is unappreciated. More importantly, it rarely shows up in performance reviews or gets factored into promotions.

So while you’re celebrating the women in your organization, remember not to burden them with unpaid labor. When you look for volunteers or hand out tasks, stop and think about how you’re distributing the invisible work. Is it anybody’s job? If not, are you making assumptions about who has the time and willingness to do it? If it’s not in a person’s job description, don’t keep assigning it to them; rotate those assignments.

And, of course, pick up your own coffee cups. :)

When good intentions meet bad systems

If you’re not seeing the results you hoped for in your DEI efforts, look to see if your good intent has been marred by your own processes. Systems that appear neutral on their face can still get in the way of well-intentioned DEI efforts.

Take, for example, the goal of diversifying your vendors and partners. I saw good intentions have a negative impact firsthand when I was among the many DEI consultants of color being approached to support organizations after George Floyd was murdered. It was wonderful to see so many organizations prioritize DEI work and be intentional about hiring people of color to do it.

The problem was that many of them issued long and involved RFPs. And they sent them to all of the BIPOC consultants that they could find.

So that summer and fall, many of us were spending a lot of time completing the RFPs. Most DEI consultants of color are solo or small operations. While we were taking on these burdensome proposals, we were also competing against each other for each piece of work. And when we booked a client, we knew that many of our peers had jumped through the same hoops without any return.

It’s a similar situation for a vendor that is required to sign a contract to do business with a large organization. The contracts are often long, with terms that favor the corporation—such as 90-day payment terms instead of the traditional 30 days, or ownership of the vendor’s intellectual property—and negotiation is discouraged or prohibited.

There is no explicitly racist intent here. But the system presents a barrier for a small business, and most minority and women-owned businesses are small. The end result is that people from traditionally marginalized groups continue to be marginalized.

I understand why many corporations take this approach. I used to represent procurement when I worked as an in-house lawyer at Lotus Development Corporation, and I remember drafting a one-size-fits-all contract that we would require all vendors to sign. It saved me time if I didn’t have to negotiate every arrangement.

But that kind of savings has a cost: it favors large, established businesses, which are much more likely to have white owners and leaders (and lots of employees, including lawyers, to navigate RFPs and contracts).

So, if you’re not getting the results you hoped for, take a look at your systems and see if they are having a disparate impact on the very people you are seeking to attract.

A practice, not a perfect

Sarah Beth of Sarah Beth Yoga often reminds her students that “Yoga is a practice, not a perfect.”

Let that be our mantra as we work to increase diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging in our organizations.

We have a vision of an ideal workplace where we never offend our colleagues, overlook someone due to our biases, or unfairly exclude someone because of a structural disadvantage. But when we look around, it’s clear we fall short.

We make mistakes, unintentionally say things that cause harm, or don’t notice the disparate impact of a system that appears neutral to us. Even when we are trying to do the right thing.

We try and fail in yoga class too. Some poses are easy for me but hard for others. Some will take me months or years to perfect. Some days, I’m just off balance.

And yet I keep coming back to my practice, because I get stronger over time and I believe this strength is important to my health.

In the same way, your commitment to strengthening your own skills and the culture of your organization doesn’t mean you’ll attain perfection. But you will get better over time.

Let's say pronouns are today’s pose. When we introduce ourselves with the pronouns we use, we are practicing. We do our best with the information we have, building our muscles. Along the way, we are going to wobble or feel a painful stretch. It’s embarrassing to make a mistake, but it's not surprising.

And just when we think we’ve got the hang of a pose that seemed impossible before (now sharing pronouns is routine) a new challenge comes along—say, letting go of a problematic word and adopting an unfamiliar term.

So when you get a correction or some feedback or advice, remember: you are practicing. You aren’t expected to be perfect. Just growing.

Regain your balance, apologize to anyone you caused harm, and get back to the mat.