The mental load at work, and what to do about it

The phrase "mental load" entered the home before it entered the workplace, but the dynamic is recognisable in both. There is the work that appears on the org chart and the work that keeps the org chart functioning. The second kind is harder to see, harder to credit and unevenly distributed.

At work, the mental load shows up as the colleague who notices that nobody has organised the team meeting, who remembers that a new hire still hasn't been set up on the system, who quietly tracks which clients have not been followed up with. The work itself is often small. The accumulation of it is not.

It tends to fall on the same people. Sometimes that is because they are senior and it is part of the role. Often it is because they are seen as conscientious, and conscientiousness, in many workplaces, is rewarded with more of the invisible work and less of the visible credit.

Naming the load is the first move. Teams that talk about who is doing the coordination work, the onboarding work, the cultural maintenance work, find it easier to redistribute it. Teams that don't, redistribute it implicitly, usually in the same direction it was already going.

Managers have a particular responsibility here. The mental load is, in many cases, a management function that has been quietly devolved to whichever team member is most likely to absorb it. Pulling it back into the role of the manager is not a favour. It is the job.