Findings

Program objectives and impacts

North Carolina State University has appropriately directed attention and capacity to student well-being in a manner that is commendable and reflective of the urgency in which it should be attended to. Yet, we also identify from our own lived experience and observed engagement with our peer faculty that faculty well-being is also a pressing concern (Elliott & Blythe 2021, Sabagh et al. 2022). Faculty well-being is negatively affected by workload inequity, efforts to fit into the work community, overwork, and sometimes by secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma related to providing care for students experiencing mental health health challenges (Goode 2023, Leiter & Maslach 1999). Service-related, caregiving, and presentation-focused work has been termed “invisible labor”, as it is a form of effort that benefits the institution but is not captured through traditional merit reporting processes.  Thus, to draw more concerted attention to the impact of invisible labor on faculty well-being, we proposed a collaborative project with the Office for Faculty Excellence to quantify and characterize the invisible labor performed by NC State faculty.  This project was supported by the College of Humanity and Social Science's Wellness Mini-Grant Program. 

The goal of our project was to pilot a process for faculty in CHASS to record and code invisible labor throughout their day.  The project was facilitated by a team including CHASS faculty (Dr. Kirsti Cole and Dr. Amanda Stewart) and OFE Faculty Fellows (Dr. Angie Smith and Dr. Laura Nelson). Our experiences and data from this pilot provide a potential means of replication of this method across the  university campus and beyond. This project aligns with CHASS’ Strategic Plan as it fosters collaboration within the College and across the University to address critical challenges pertaining to faculty retention and well-being, as well as foster a more inclusive and equitable environment. With the participation of SVP Stewart, this project garnered attention from University leadership, and the support of this mini-grant is a catalyst, securing CHASS’ imprint on all future attention from the University to faculty well-being from the lens of invisible labor.

During Spring 2024, we recruited a cohort of College faculty to track  time associated with dimensions of their effort that align with published definitions of invisible labor and to characterize the category or categories of invisible labor they performed. . An IRB-exempt protocol was developed to permit collection of this data and faculty demographics for this projects. .  A cohort of 12 faculty were recruited through email recruitment. The faculty cohort were engaged with an initial meeting to discuss invisible labor and make clear the task of time tracking, as well as oriented to the Toggl tracking app used in this pilot study. This group then tracked their time over a two-week period, using instructions devised by our team, including definitions of labor to track and how to engage with tracking in Toggl. At the close of the pilot study, the cohort convened again for a debrief meeting to reflect, as well as orient faculty to tools to manage as well as communicate aspects of invisible labor as part of their faculty workload. For both the initial and debrief meeting, a meal was sponsored by OFE for the participating faculty. 

Project findings 

The study’s findings shed light on the scale and scope of university faculty invisible labor. 

• Faculty performed a total of 355.45 hours of invisible labor. Across the two-week period, the twelve faculty tracked a total of 355.45 (227.45 with codes) hours of invisible labor performed. This averages about 29.6 hours per faculty member participating in the two-week tracking period. 128 hours logged by faculty participants were recorded without a tag. 

• Invisible labor tracked across all eight codes in the study. These codes, along with their number of associated hours and percent of total hours, are as follows: 

  • Aspirational effort: Time/effort spent to the benefit of NCSU, but not in exchange for salary. Motivated by a hope that the time/effort will improve the likelihood of one's prospects for paid employment in the future (100.30 hours / 44% of total hours tracked)

  • Caregiving: Providing caregiving and support for others, including students and peers (47 hours / 20.6% of total hours tracked)

  • Emotional labor: Managing and regulating emotions in order to meet perceived expectations of role, even when true feelings are counter to expressed emotions (64 hours / 28.1% of total hours tracked)

  • Institutional housekeeping: Picking up the slack of the collective, filling in gaps that support a workload of a team or department (61.40 hours / 26.99% of total hours tracked)

  • Mental load: Effort spent organizing and planning effort and workload (77 hours / 33.85% of total hours tracked)

  • Social expectations: Time/effort spent preparing for presentability, professionalism; may be related to perceived bias about gender or other identity dimensions (80.5 hours / 35.39% of total hours tracked)

  • Stress management: Time/effort spent to alleviate detrimental mental, social, and/or physical impacts of invisible labor (75 hours / 32.97% of total hours tracked)

  • Voluntary extensions: Attending social events or extra activities tangential to defined role; may not be explicitly invited or required (66 hours / 29% of total hours tracked)

• The faculty cohort tracked an average of 23.6 hours per day including hours without associated codes. Coded hours totaled 18.95 per day. 

• Faculty members tracked 16.5% of their hours outside of the typical 9-5pm workday, including 21% of hours on weekends. 

Observations from these findings 

• The most noted hours were in Aspirational Effort, Social Expectation, Mental Load, and Stress Management. Trends show that time spent performing in and recovering from an individual’s role is substantial. 

• Aspirational efforts may be a reflection of faculty recognizing the potential impacts of social relationships and visibility as  unwritten aspects of the tenure and promotion process. 

• Tracking and understanding Caregiving efforts seemed the most malleable code. Participants reflected on confusion felt over whether caregiving efforts are part of the job or “going above and beyond,” and by whose definition? There was also an indication of overlap between caregiving and educating, as student mental health and resource sufficiency impact their retention and completion of their studies.  It also indicates a gap between  institutional support, faculty awareness of support, and potentially the ability of institutional support to meet student needs. 

• Context drives invisible labor, with factors such as the role of the faculty member (e.g. working with graduate vs. undergraduate students), their status (e.g. tenure track, tenure, professional track), department/discipline, personal profile, and other factors affecting their behaviors.

• Though defined, categories of invisible labor are malleable and cross-indicate. As an example, the same situation may demand both caregiving and emotional labor as forms of invisible effort. As a proof of concept study, all 8 codes were used and found useful by participants.

• Results indicate the possibility of wide variance across career stage and discipline, as well as gender, race, and age-group.

• Some aspects of invisible labor may be necessary, even acceptable, but some evidence from our study indicates that invisible labor may be a reflection of well-being, even distress. 

• Invisible labor needs to be addressed for its structural, material, and affective dimensions. 

Beyond the project findings, the measurable outcomes of this project was that research study was implemented per the proposal, and several follow up meetings are planned, including with the Senior Vice Provost Katharine Stewart and with the university’s council of Associate Deans. 

Sustainability

Beyond the insights of the findings, the team hopes that the findings will be sustainable through updated university policy. To this end, the team will be proposing an updated definition of service to SVP Stewart to account for informal service, aka invisible labor, conducted for the purpose of university aims. 

In addition, the project team anticipates seeking funding from an internal or external source to expand upon the findings of this pilot study. Possible external sources include the National Science Foundation or the Mellon Foundation. 

Dissemination

Beyond the meetings with SVP Stewart and the Associate Deans, the team will be maintaining their project website, which was used for recruitment to the study and now updated to reflect the findings of the study (https://sites.google.com/ncsu.edu/facultywholeness/home). The team will also be sharing an announcement with the University Bulletin about the project’s scope and findings. The team is also considering options for dissemination through a conference poster to a conference associated with one of the project team’s disciplines, or through placement of a manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal.