Subscribe to the Tuesday Briefing
Tuesday Briefing · No. 17 · 2 Jun, 2026
When invisible work becomes too much
What to do when invisible work has become a burden, not just an oversight.
Emily Rust
Founder, Stones
Featured
Good morning. You’ve had the conversation. You’ve named what you've noticed - the quiet care, constantly doing the work no one else is, going the extra mile, the small acts of mentorship or support that keep the team moving. They hear you. More relieved than you expected.
Then Monday comes. The week fills up. And they're back to carrying what they always carried - because acknowledgement, however genuine, doesn't change the behaviour, and doesn’t reduce the load.
Two weeks ago we looked at how to start seeing invisible work and what to say about it. This week is about what to do when noticing and recognising isn't enough.
There's an important distinction to make first. Not all invisible work is a problem. Some people genuinely find meaning in the relational role they carry - the onboarding, the conflict smoothing, the informal mentoring. When that work is seen and valued, it can be deeply satisfying.
The problem is when it tips. When the work is no longer personally rewarding but is still accumulating. When it's pulling time and energy from the work that gets recognised and rewarded. When someone is absorbing a load that was never meant to sit with one person - and the only reason it continues is because no one has said otherwise.
The signals to watch for
These may not be the signals of someone underperforming. They are quite possibly the signals of someone absorbing too much for too long.
If you recognise any of these: the load is probably the problem, not the person.
- They're still doing the invisible work - but with less warmth, less energy, less initiative than they used to
- When you ask how they're going in a 1:1, there's a pause before the answer
- They've mentioned feeling stretched - even in passing, even framed as fine
- Their capacity for visible, high-stakes work has quietly dropped
- They've stopped initiating some of the informal things they once did naturally
The four Rs
There is no single right response. It depends on what the invisible work is, why it accumulated with this person, and what's actually sustainable for the team. Four approaches, roughly in order of scale.
- Redesign the work: Create structure that distributes the invisible load before it defaults to whoever's most willing. Formal training or onboarding processes. Explicit norms around relational maintenance. Rotating responsibility for the things no one formally owns. The goal is to make invisible work visible in the system - so it can be planned for, not just absorbed.
- Recalibrate expectations: Have an explicit conversation about what's in scope for this person and what isn't. Invisible work accumulates through repeated default - no one said it was their job, and no one said it wasn't. Recalibrating means naming that, resetting it, and then signalling the change to the team so the default doesn't quietly drift back.
- Redistribute the load: Identify who else in the team could carry some of what this person has been carrying - and ask them directly. This rarely happens organically. People who aren't currently doing invisible work won't suddenly start because you've said the workload is unequal. They need to be asked, briefed, and supported. And the person redistributing needs to know it's a managed handover, not an abandonment of something they cared about.
- Reorganise more broadly: Sometimes the right response is structural - changing the role, the team composition, or how the team operates. This is the most disruptive option and usually comes after the others. But occasionally it's the only real answer.
How to start the conversation
The risk is framing this as a performance issue when it isn't one. It needs to be named as what it is: a capacity and fairness conversation.
"I've been thinking about the extra load you're absorbing. I’m not sure it’s sustainable, and I want to understand your experience of it before I suggest any changes."
"Is the invisible work - the relational stuff, the behind-the-scenes things - something you still find meaningful? Or has it started to feel like something you're just absorbing because you always have?"
"I want to redistribute some of what you've been carrying. Not because you're not doing it well - but because it shouldn't consistently sit with one person."
Three things you can do today
- 1
Audit what they're actually carrying
Before any conversation, map their week in reality - not their job description, what they actually do. Write it down. The act of writing it down will likely surprise you.
- 2
Understand their experience before proposing a solution
Ask: "Is this something you find meaningful, or has it become something you're absorbing by default?" “Have you still got capacity for this, on top of the expected workload?”. Their answer shapes the right response. Don't arrive with a plan before you know which question you're answering.
- 3
Make any change explicit
Redistribution only works if the team sees it as intentional. Name what has changed and why - without undermining the person who was carrying it. "We're putting a proper onboarding process in place" lands very differently to "we're making sure this isn't all falling on one person."
The most important conversations about invisible work aren't the ones where you say "I see you." They're the ones where you say "if this isn't feeling fulfilling or sustainable then let's do something about it." Those are harder. They're also the ones that really count.
That's all for this week's briefing.
Emily Rust · Founder, Stones
The archive
Every past edition
Browse the back catalogue. One leadership idea per week, all in one place.
The Tuesday Briefing
One idea, every Tuesday.
Join the leaders who start their week with one practical idea worth acting on.