Non-Job Performance Roles

Definition

Traditional job descriptions focus narrowly on job-specific tasks, key result areas, and KPIs. Baker proposes a role description framework that recognizes employees play five distinct roles: (1) the Job Role (technical task accomplishment), and four non-job roles: (2) Positive Mental Attitude and Enthusiasm, (3) Team Player, (4) Career Development, and (5) Innovation and Continuous Improvement. The framework treats non-job roles with the same rigor as job roles—specifying elements, competencies, and measurable outcomes—rather than burying them as vague appendices ("be a good team player"). These four non-job roles are interpersonal (attitude, teamwork) or personal (development, innovation) and are universally relevant across industries and contexts. Baker argues that organizations ignore or underweight these roles despite knowing they drive high performance; this omission distorts performance management, compensation, succession planning, and dismissal decisions.

In the Book

Baker opens Chapter 6 by showing how job descriptions hide multiple performance realities. He describes three different job descriptions that may exist for the same role: (1) what the job description says, (2) what the boss thinks the employee should do, and (3) what the employee actually does—and these often diverge. More fundamentally, performing "well at work goes well beyond the piece of paper we refer to as a job description." He then outlines the four non-job roles. Positive attitude/enthusiasm is the highest-rated attribute managers seek; it's essential for maintaining morale through relentless organizational change. Team playing is the second interpersonal role, crucial as organizational structures flatten and cross-functional teams become the norm. Career development (the first personal role) is lifelong learning and skill-building, both technical and personal (time management, people skills). Innovation and continuous improvement (the final personal role) is offering constructive suggestions for how the business can function better—covering product quality, cycle time, output, consistency, cooperation, and process streamlining. Baker demonstrates that while managers instinctively understand these roles matter, they're almost never incorporated into recruitment, induction, appraisal, compensation, or succession planning with the same specificity as job tasks. He proposes a model (Figure 6.2) showing Job Role on one side and the four Non-Job Roles on the other, each with its own KRAs, elements, competencies, and KPIs. This elevates non-job performance from rhetorical value ("we want team players") to measurable accountability.

Why It Matters

This framework explains a persistent gap between stated values and actual performance management. Organizations say culture matters, then evaluate people almost entirely on task accomplishment. They say innovation is critical, then reward narrow goal achievement. They claim to value teamwork, then organize around functional silos and individual accountability. The non-job performance framework makes this hypocrisy visible and actionable. It also identifies where dismissals and promotions often miss: an employee may excel at their job tasks but perform poorly in non-job roles (siloed, doesn't share information, resists change, offers no improvement ideas)—yet traditional performance systems may not capture this. Conversely, someone strong in non-job roles but weaker on specific KPIs might be undervalued. For organizations seeking agility, this framework is especially critical because continuous improvement, innovation, teamwork, and adaptability are precisely the non-job behaviors that drive agile performance. An organization that measures and develops these roles systematically will naturally become more agile than one treating them as soft-skills afterthoughts. It also clarifies why job descriptions are insufficient for modern work: they cannot capture the collaborative, adaptive, learning-focused, improvement-oriented behaviors that knowledge work requires.