Invisible work
travail invisible
Work that is done, that the organisation depends on, and that appears in no count. The founding result is counter-intuitive: invisibility is not a property of the work itself, it is a social and organisational process through which some forms of labour become unrecognised, unmeasured, taken for granted. No work is inherently visible or invisible.
The consequence is direct. Making work visible is not a measurement operation, it is an organisational one. It requires someone whose position allows them to see the whole chain, which is precisely what no single person inside the chain can do.
What it means for an SME running AI
The verification, correction and re-prompting your teams do around AI is not hidden because it is small. It is hidden because nothing in your organisation is built to count it.
Sources
- Star & Strauss, « Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice », Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 1999
Related terms
This is what the survey measures See how it is measured →
Or answer six questions on your own uses Take the check →