If you confuse “work” with “help”

This one is more a matter of workplace culture, and may be a problem throughout American business in general, but it’s worth underlining all the same.

“The project launch is finally set. Thanks to Linda and Jackie for their help on this!”

“Thanks to Roberto for his help getting this grant application in.”

“I appreciate your help in making the conference draft happen.”

Your Slack is probably riddled with messages like this, complete with the obligatory thumbs-up / praise hands / party popper emoji so staff members can show they are definitely, truly, absolutely keeping up-to-date on events.

Yes, you should praise good work–but see what I just wrote? Work, not help.

I don’t think this is pedantry here. If this were a matter of style, or contemporary American usage, I’d let stuff slide. (I’ve had to accept “no worries” as a substitute for “you’re welcome,” and while it’s still a passive-aggressive reframing of a request, I also just need to get my coffee and go.) Rather, I really do think it’s a reflection of nonprofit culture in two key ways:

1. Your employees work for you. Commitment to mission aside, they don’t just show up and volunteer their time and energy. No: they work for you, often at half of corporate scale, and often while doing a million other things to keep the organization running. Constantly reframing job duties as help, even in the attempt of recognizing others’ efforts, just makes it seem like people are eagerly slopping on more and more job duties on their plates, as if there aren’t compelling reasons in this wavering economy to just say yes to any and all tasks your boss brings up. (Notice that we always need to think of boss’s intent, while everyone else only gets measured by their impact?)
2. Relabeling “work” as “help” often becomes a way for certain higher-ups to create some sense of purpose for their own job detail. Let’s face it: we all know that there are some senior staff roles where it’s difficult to understand what, exactly, they do beyond nitpick everyone else or insert themselves in projects everyone else has already taken on. Getting through them becomes part of your unspoken job duty, and maybe a quarter of your week is spent explaining and reframing things so they don’t reverse course or insert themselves into a task. They’re the bottleneck–and they’re the most likely to downgrade “work” as “help” because it makes them seem kind while also reinforcing they’re truly the one making things happen, hence why others helped. (Be wary of any senior staff that claims an entire team are decision-makers but only thinks they should be paid for decision-making.)

I can forgive number one as a purely American contradiction–the inventors of hustle culture who also takes shame in anyone seeming they have to work for a living. “Do what you love” may be a poisonous mindset, but I can’t blame nonprofits for that. But the second issue is true administrative bloat, the rare bit of fat that could be trimmed in the industry. True generosity is knowing nearly all of us clock in and get it done.