Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm

specializing in helping teams and organizations create employee experiences that keep talent engaged.

You know, one thing that really helps drive engagement is recognition.

Like just showing our talent that their efforts are seen and appreciated and valued.

It goes a long way. A lot of companies do this well. When they see something great happen,

they celebrate it. The issue is, though, a lot of amazing things are happening that are

kind of invisible. And it's hard to show recognition for something we can't see.

In 2018, journalist Gemma Hartley wrote a book called Fed Up, Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way

Forward. And this book opened up a conversation specifically about women and how society and

often individual households run smoothly

only when women are picking up slack that others may not consider or see. Now agree or disagree

with Hartley's assertion, the reality is that some of this same stuff is playing out at work

and I'm hearing about it from clients and friends and partners.

Now, granted, sometimes an occasion calls for someone to step up, to step outside of their lane

and pick up a piece of slack that they hadn't planned for. But when it happens on repeat,

and a team or an organization is unknowingly relying on that person's invisible efforts,

then something has got to give.

Today, I want to acknowledge some of these groups that I am seeing carrying the extra load.

And let's talk about how we can better support and recognize them.

First, we have our second shift advocates. Maybe your organization has a diversity recruitment strategy. Maybe it has employee resource groups for non-majority employees. Maybe it's brought in

anti-biased training. Hopefully it's doing something. For any organization to do diversity effectively,

like giving it substance and action and support rather

...