Invisible Workers
Valuing your work when others won't
Hello friends,
As the ground starts to finally thaw here in Ohio and the first bits of green are poking through the mud, I’ve been reflecting on how much is happening beneath the surface.
It reminds me of a story I recently read. A journalist asked a wildly successful businessman the key to his success. He shrugged it off and said he was a “normal guy.” The journalist went on to speak to his wife and found that she was completely handling everything — childcare, laundry, bills, cleaning, and meals, so he never had to worry. He didn’t seem to notice how much work went into his success because he wasn’t the one doing it.
The point is there’s a lot of hidden work that goes on before we see brilliant blooms.
I see so many invisible workers around me right now. I talk to employees who are holding up entire departments while being told their roles are “overhead.” I see brilliant scholars laid off, who are still showing up every day talking about their work — hoping that exposure will lead to opportunities. I see leaders who are tired of being told “faster,” “more AI,” “efficiency gains” without a clear idea of what the end goal is.
My own work often feels invisible. I have spent a lot of my career doing things for exposure. I organically built my network to over 25k people. I’ve helped hundreds of folks in the industry find jobs, build programs, and make a difference. However, I couldn’t find a client or a full-time opportunity when I needed it most last year. My proposals never get accepted into industry conferences. I’m not asked to keynote, and often, I have to turn down opportunities because million-dollar companies claim “no budget.”
What we’re here to talk about today is the value of invisible workers. Because without that invisible work, these brilliant moments don’t happen. Our industry doesn’t run on AI or unpaid opportunities. It runs on YOU. And it’s time to stop waiting for people to notice the work we do in the dark and start demanding they pay for the value we bring to the light.
Gut Check
In honor of International Women’s Day this month, we’ll start by talking about the invisible work of women in L&D.
The fantastic Sharon Claffey Kaliouby is at it again, sharing the “Women in Learning: State of the Industry Report 2025” in one of my new favorite publications Hell and D.
Here are the key takeaways from the report, taken directly from the website linked above:
The Representation Paradox: Women make up 65% of the L&D workforce , yet hold less than 20% of C-suite roles.
The “Office Housework” Tax: Women are 48% more likely to volunteer for non-promotable tasks , costing them the strategic time needed to reach the top.
Debunking the “Ask” Myth: Women ask for raises just as often as men , but men are 33% more likely to actually receive them.
The 2026 Flexibility Stigma: Remote work has created a hidden promotion penalty for women that their male colleagues simply don’t face.
The “Queen Hive” Strategy: Shifting from individual survival to collective influence can nearly double female promotion rates.
Perhaps it won’t be surprising, but I shared this report and these results on my LinkedIn, and my post was shadow banned. The prior day, my very viral post reached 99k impressions. However, when I posted these results to call out the unfairness, I only received 2k impressions. So, I’ll continue to bring it up.
To the men in this industry right now. Please do what you can to help lift us up. Stop accepting invites to all-male panels. Start demanding silence so the women in the room can speak. Start auditing your work and be real with yourself — what are you volunteering women on your team to do that won’t benefit them?
And for everyone, we need to talk more about this. We need to stop shying away from these conversations. There are many ways to move forward, but first we need to stop sweeping this conversation under the rug come April.
One Useful Thing
That was a bit depressing. So, let’s talk about some folks who recognize the value of L&D leaders in the industry. I’ve decided to join my friends at iSpring as an ambassador this year.
One of the things I do as part of that is judge their annual iSpring Course Creation Contest.
Now, I’m biased, but I love this contest. Let’s be real — it’s a fantastic way for the folks at iSpring to get new users into their product to try it out and hopefully want to purchase it. BUT it’s also a great opportunity for people who are new to the industry or who just need to update their portfolios. You can try out a new tool, get feedback from real experts in the industry (some of my fellow judges include Tim Slade, Cara North, and Tom McDowall of Instructional Design Tips ), and win prizes on top of all that!
They also have a lovely, supportive LinkedIn group called the iSpring Learning Exchange, where they will be hosting sessions in preparation for the contest and sharing more details. I’ll be hosting a session on March 27 on how to turn walls of text into eLearning.
Whether you’re looking to sharpen your skills, get some long-overdue feedback, or finally build that portfolio piece that gets you noticed, I’d love to see you there. It’s a rare chance to take all that expertise you’ve been cultivating and turn it into something visible.
Inside the Revolution
I recently saw a post on LinkedIn by Jay Lambert talking about how at the end of this month, Articulate is moving subscribers over to the AI-powered pricing tier when their plan renews, regardless of whether they use the AI features.
It’s an interesting move, considering they’re also doubling down on free labor disguised as “community,” a topic I discussed on my own LinkedIn recently.
It is a fascinating business model to watch… as the platform’s reported cost of entry increases in the name of "AI-driven efficiency," the company simultaneously leans on the same users they’re charging for manual, uncompensated labor.
Their new "Template Creation Guilds" ask for hours of expert time to build "core template hubs" that ultimately enhance their product’s value proposition for other paying subscribers. Although it’s framed as a "networking opportunity," we have to call it what it is: a billion-dollar company crowdsourcing the development of its own commercial assets. A friend of mine reached out to see if there was budget for this, but he was ignored.
If a task requires an application process, professional expertise, adherence to a schedule and meetings, and produces a functional part of a vendor's library — that is a professional engagement, not a f*&king hobby.
Then, we have the newly launched Articulate Labs. On the surface, it’s presented as a way for “adventurous users” to test experimental features and “shape the future” of the product.
But let’s look beneath the surface: this is effectively a request for the community to act as a massive, uncompensated Quality Assurance and Product Development department. By participating, you aren’t just giving feedback; you are providing the high-level diagnostic data and stress-testing that companies usually pay professional QA engineers and UX researchers to perform. It is a brilliant way to cut overhead by rebranding labor as “early access.”
My plea? Do not participate.
Every time we volunteer our professional expertise to help a billion-dollar entity refine its profit-generating tools for free, we are actively devaluing the consulting and technical skills our industry depends on. When we normalize giving away our labor, we make it that much harder for the person trying to charge a fair market rate for that work.
I value this community deeply, but I cannot stand in solidarity with those who are actively participating in systems that rely on our collective exploitation. We aren't "growing together" if your free labor is the reason someone else can't get a paid contract.
Don’t be the free labor that powers their next price hike.
Take With You
I leave you with a couple of reflection questions for this month:
What is the value of the free work I’m doing right now? Putting aside other people’s perspectives and expectations, how does that make me feel?
If we normalize providing high-level consulting, QA, and content creation as a "community" favor, how can we expect the professional standing next to us to successfully negotiate a living wage for those same skills?
Heidi 🪴💪🏻