In good times and in tough times, Federal agencies need employees to direct their capabilities, energy, and effort towards more than just their core job duties. Mission success requires that employees also recognize—and seize—opportunities to support the agency in ways not necessarily specified in their position descriptions (PDs) nor tied to their formal job tasks. Indeed, agencies need employees to think and behave “outside the box” of formal job tasks and to do, support, or help with what needs to be done in the name of broader mission accomplishment. Agencies need employees to direct their effort towards both task and contextual performance.
What are Task and Contextual Performance?
Employees’ performance at work can be divided into task and contextual performance[1]. Task performance is the “meat” of an employee’s job: the technical, core duties that directly feed into creation of an organization’s products and services. Meanwhile, contextual performance behaviors are the “gravy” or those employee actions that season the work environment where task performance occurs. In essence, contextual performance behaviors make the work environment more conducive to the generation of task performance. There are five general categories[2] of contextual performance behaviors: …..
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