SITE 2024 (Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics) is happening! Held from July 1 to September 11, 2024, the conference covers a broad range of economic topics, with world-class scholars presenting leading-edge economic research.

It’s almost like “华山论剑” in Economics.

On July 2nd, Lise Vesterlund talked about non-promotable tasks (NPTs). It is a very interesting concept.

what are non-promotable tasks?

Non-promotable tasks are those that benefit the organization but likely don’t contribute to someone’s performance evaluation and career advancement. These tasks include traditional office “housework,” such as organizing a holiday party, as well as a much wider set of tasks, such as filling in for a colleague, serving on a low-ranking committee, or taking on routine work that doesn’t require much skill or produce much impact.

What is non-promotable varies across fields and careers. For example, in industry, revenue-generating tasks are more promotable than non-revenue-generating tasks; in academia, research-related tasks are more promotable than service-related tasks; and for individuals, a task may be promotable for junior employees but non-promotable for senior-ranking managers.

— Harvard Business Review, Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions (2018)

Aka, crap jobs. These jobs are usually not instrumental to an organization’s core mission and are often invisible to others (especially to leaders and bosses) and do not usually require specialized skills.

gender inequality

Unfortunately, sometimes employees, especially junior ones, are assigned or prompted to ‘voluntarily’ take on NPTs without fully understanding their impact. They might think taking on some office housework is necessary before being assigned important tasks, or they might feel pressured by concerns about appearing unfriendly or guilty. But spending too much of one’s precious personal time on these tasks can be detrimental.

This problem is particularly pernicious for women. Studies show systematic gender differences in how work is allocated—women tend to spend more time than men on non-promotable tasks and less time on promotable ones. Lise and her co-authors have shown that:

We asked the management team at a professional services firm to rank work assignments by how promotable they were, and then examined how employees spent their time. We found that, independent of rank, the median female employee spent 200 more hours per year on non-promotable work than her male counterparts. To put that into perspective: Women spent an additional month on dead-end assignments.

Further, in a controlled setting where men and women were equally good at executing NPTs, we found that women were handling a greater number of them — not due to preference or attitude — but because they were expected to say yes more often. As a result, women were asked and volunteered to do NPTs frequently, while men got a free pass.

Ironically, when a group consisted only of men, they were substantially more willing to volunteer for NPTs compared to when women were present.

what to do about it?

Often, we feel pressured to say YES—even when we don’t have to. Some patterns for this include: feeling like we have to decide immediately, internalizing the expectation that we should say YES, or worse, being flattered by being asked, which nudges our vanity and pride in saying YES.

This isn’t to say that we should say NO all the time. Instead, weigh an opportunity before taking on its responsibility. There is a cost to saying ‘NO’, but there is also the opportunity cost of saying ‘YES’. Set a ‘reserve price’ for your time, and spend it on something more valuable.

Also, be aware of the intricate differences between tasks. Certainly, not all NPTs are the same. Since NPTs are almost unavoidable at times, it can be helpful to be intentional in choosing NPTs that are perhaps meaningful in certain ways—those that are consistent with our personal long-term aspirations. For example, some seemingly less-promotable tasks might be useful in developing essential skills, building connections we can leverage later, or simply being easier or more enjoyable.

Lastly, in a utilitarian way, weigh the urgency of the non-promotable task, and remember that you will always be busy in the future anyway, so don’t overload yourself with tasks. Why?

A task with a short deadline will trump a task with a longer one, no matter how insignificant it is. Taking on too many NPTs with with short time horizons, however, will likely distract you from longer-term initiatives that are more valued by your organization.

a little more personal reflection

I remember in high school, I had a classmate who volunteered to do a lot of NPTs. For high schoolers, NPTs ranged from taking care of plants to editing videos for class events. He could have spent his time doing something more interesting: hanging out with friends, taking photos, or simply studying more. The amount of time he volunteered for NPTs, as I observed, was far from productive and sub-optimal.

What did he get in the end? He was praised by our class instructor at graduation—mentioned briefly in a speech. But the recognition he received was far less than he deserved. Essentially, he got nothing out of it apart from some mindless applause—I think he deserved better.

Who is to blame?

reference

Kellogg Insight. “Are You Taking on Too Many Non-Promotable Tasks?” Harvard Business Review, April 27, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/04/are-you-taking-on-too-many-non-promotable-tasks.

Bohns, Vanessa K. “Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions.” Harvard Business Review, July 16, 2018. https://hbr.org/2018/07/why-women-volunteer-for-tasks-that-dont-lead-to-promotions.