Renita sat back from her computer and realized what was wrong with her department. She had been reading about how women do a lot of the $$housekeeping$$ work in organizations, work that is not recognized and can often undermine their status and advancement. In her state$-$government finance office, it was not just a gender issue$-$there were three or four employees $($male and female$)$ that the department head seemed to always ask to do something extra. As a good writer, she was often asked to review or proof departmental documents, work that took time away from her job and slowed down the completion of her own work. The last time she tried to say, $$No$,$ she was made to feel guilty and the importance of this work to her next performance review was emphasized. However, at the last performance review, she realized that those who were not pitching in to help the team got all their work in on time and were getting better performance ratings than she was. She and her colleagues who felt that they also were being abused were thinking about how to approach the department head and tell him that he could not have it both ways$-$you cannot ask some to pitch in but not others, especially if it hurts the performance of those who did more for the team.

Discussion Questions.

$1.$ Based on what you have learned about encouraging and rewarding employees, what are the core problems here?

$2.$ What could the department head do to encourage and reward both contextual and task performance?

$1.$ Do you have examples of these kinds of challenges in your public or nonprofit organization? How could they be addressed?