Whose Job Is It Anyway? Job Title vs. Job Role

Job titles have become useless and nonsensical. They rarely give a clear indication of what a person actually does in their work, and the trend of bizarre job titles has gone well beyond the satirical comedy of The Office; where the eager to please Dwight Schrute would constantly remind his “subordinates” that he was “Assistant to the Regional Manager”. Unfortunately, we now have such titles as Lead Assistant Vice President, Head Receiver, Chief Happiness Officer and Innovation Guru.  

As Dwight so sadly shows us, along with the word salads cluttering up LinkedIn profiles; job titles do nothing for work, and call more to the ego.

So what’s the point in job titles? 

Whose job is it anyway? 

What do people really do around here? 

What does any of it mean?

In most organisations, job titles are a label which denotes your position and where you sit within the organisational hierarchy. They provide an overview dominated by authority. Who has power over who.

The reality is, there is no point in job titles. Yes, there are legally binding positions which someone has to uphold, but most of the time, job titles are a marketing function, making us look and sound far more important than we really are. 

The trouble is, it’s easy to get obsessed with a job title. Especially when a job title may indicate how successful you must be to others, how much you earn, determine your future job prospects and your social standing. There’s an awful lot tied to a few simple words. 

We can’t deny that job titles are also addictive. They can feed into a person’s sense of self-importance, a belief that they are somehow better than others. In company cultures where this attachment to titles is high, a sense of entitlement can reign, and rather than being a team player, individuals become only self-interested in winning their own game – which title can I achieve next? And how can I exert my authority with this position?

But only if we make it this way. 

Choosing to operate around roles rather than titles is a common sense move that many progressive organisations have adopted. In some instances, they’ve kept titles for external use only, but internally operate with clear and dynamic roles which change and shift as and when is needed. 

It can sound odd at first to think about letting go of the titles and choosing roles. But this is how work is anyway. While we may have a fixed job title, how often does that reveal all the things people actually do in the day-to-day of their worklife. For example, if someone told you they were the CEO – what does that tell you? – Not much aside from the fact they have some kind of responsibility. But it doesn’t give you any information about what they do.  

I worked with a team recently on helping them to gain clarity on the roles they all play, and the team were shocked to discover one team member had a total of nine roles to play within the organisation. This isn’t uncommon, many of us wear different hats at work, but because we’re limited to just providing our title or position, even our colleagues often don’t know what we’re working on. 

Now of course, some of these roles don’t take up all of someone’s time. For example, being the social events organiser for the team away days isn’t a full time job. Or being the dedicated first aider. But having this type of clarity helps individuals and team members realise just how many roles there are in the organisation, and who is taking responsibility for what. 

Job role = what someone actually does 

Job title = external label of reference for when someone works in the company, will often have a positional attribute to denote someone’s authority within the organisation. 

A job title is a label for a specific position in a company, a role is what someone actually does. 

Titles are a formal term that often reflects the hierarchical level and the primary responsibilities associated with the position. For instance, common job titles include “Manager,” “Software Engineer,” or “Sales Associate.” Job titles are typically used in organisational charts, business cards, and job postings to succinctly convey a person’s position within the organisation and their area of expertise or responsibility.

On the other hand, a job role encompasses the broader spectrum of responsibilities, tasks, and expectations associated with a job title, and in progressive organisations, even the purpose of the role. It delves into the day-to-day duties, the skills required, and the specific outcomes the individual is expected to achieve. For example, while the job title might be “Project Manager,” the job role would involve planning and executing projects, coordinating with teams, managing budgets, and ensuring project milestones are met on time.

While a title can often only be held by one or a few individuals, roles can be held by multiple people, as well as be removed and changed around. 

Metaphorically, I often like to think of the difference like this.

 A title is someone sitting in one box with a label on a shelf. People know the label, know their position, but aren’t sure what’s in the box. 

Roles are like hats. You can wear whichever hat suits you, and wear more than just one. And sometimes, someone else can wear that hat. 

Typically, in a traditional organisation people only have a job title which relates to their position, whereas in more progressive organisations, people have a portfolio of roles which they steward. An individual may hold many different roles across the company in different teams.

Let’s look at some examples of job title vs job roles in real-life companies who have chosen this way of working.  

Mayden 

Mayden is a UK software company based in Bath. They are a flat organisation who operates in the space of dynamic roles, enabling people to choose their roles, develop and evolve them as and when needed. 

For example; 

One individual holds a role in developing and researching their ways of working, but also holds roles in organising company social events, and has the smaller role of being the company voiceover for their marketing videos. 

Another individual holds a role in information governance and compliance, but is also a trained coach, and works as an internal coach for the marketing team. 

As one example of role evolution, an individual who started at the company as a receptionist, has gone on to develop themselves to now be a product owner, taking on the responsibility of the company’s flagship product and making key business decisions about how the product is developed. 

Mayden has internal coaches across the company. Everyone chooses a coach to work with, and the coaches support people in developing their roles and skills and navigating their development. It’s a fundamental part of helping the team continually pursue roles that excite them and develop their skills. 

If you’re fascinated about how Mayden operates you can listen to the podcast interview we had together here. Or I would highly recommend their book Made without Managers.  

Sutton Community Farm 

My colleague Helen Triggs shared her own example of roles with me recently, as she volunteers for a Sutton Community Farm; London’s only community-owned fruit and vegetable farm. 

At Sutton Community Farm they’ve been experimenting with participatory organising for a while, and one the facets of this is roles. 

For example, one person stewards the following roles; applying for grant funding, wholesale sales, learning to grow crops. While another stewards volunteer care, propagation, field crops and toilet management. 

It’s a great example of how even on a small scale, people can come together to bring all of their skills and talents to life and contribute in a more meaningful way. 

If you’re not yet convinced to ease-up on the job titles and go for job roles, here’s a small list of the benefits that can be gained when we’re no longer attached to a box in our way of working.

People can personalise their work. 

Rather than being stuck feeling that they only have one part to play in the company, people can build a portfolio of roles that help them to bring other talents and skills to life. Making work far more interesting and alot less boring and monotonous. 

After all, we’re no longer in the industrial manufacturing era of factory lines, so why keep people stuck in doing repetitive tasks that don’t motivate or inspire them. For example, they may need to do 80% of repetitive work, but what could they do with another 20% of fulfilling a role that gives them some challenge and excitement. 

I spoke about this idea of job crafting with specialist Rob Baker on the podcast. It’s well worth a listen if you’re intrigued by the concept.

People can bring together their strengths and passions. 

Wouldn’t work feel more liberating if we could match a persons strengths, passions and motivations to roles? This is a possibility, yet we continue to only source one skill or talent and keep that person stuck in a box for most of their career. 

Instead, getting to know people’s strengths and passions should be the first point when we’re deciding on what roles we wish to steward. 

The ability to use our strengths is highly motivating – we like doing things we’re good at, and that challenge us ever so slightly. As Dan Pink shared in his book Drive, mastery is a core component to intrinsic motivation, as humans we desire to have something which challenges us and that we can pursue to gain mastery. 

People can try new roles. 

Our experience of varied work is deeply limited because even from a young age we are encouraged to pick a lane and stay in that lane. But the trouble is, we grow, we change, and suddenly our interest wanes into something else. This is where people often begin feeling like they’re stuck in a job, and don’t know how to move because it’s all they’ve ever known. 

But instead, what if we can give people the chance to try something different? It doesn’t have to be forever, but even a short-term experience can open people’s minds to try a new career. 

Swapping roles and having a roles marketplace has become popular in more progressive organisations for many reasons. It not only gives people the opportunity to experience a new role and look into the potential of retraining, but also helps people to learn more about other areas of the organisation. 

When we’re not so wed to our job roles, it means we can gain far greater agility and diversity in how work gets done, and provide a broader range of perspectives.

People have clear expectations. 

Job descriptions and job titles are all a lot of waffle, and rarely relevant to what people actually do. It’s no surprise that communication is often so poor in company’s when even down to the basics of what people do – people don’t often know themselves, let alone their colleagues. 

I see this lack of clarity become a major pain point in organisations, and I do strongly believe that much of this can be resolved with greater clarity on people’s roles and responsibilities. 

When everyone knows the roles they hold, and the responsibilities that sit within them we all have clear expectations and accountability. Without this clarity I see people stepping on each other’s toes, getting frustrated that goals aren’t achieved or that people aren’t taking ownership of things. It gets messy, when all we need is clarity.

Teams aren’t doing unnecessary work. 

The beauty of working in a roles based organisation is that people aren’t doing unnecessary work. 

As roles are fluid, they can be moved to someone else, or disappear entirely when there is no longer a need for them. For example; you may have an events committee who only meet once a year to organise the company’s main event; these roles can be created and dispersed when they’re no longer needed.  

Too often we look at roles as static, when in reality things can change quickly in an organisation and we need to adapt the roles accordingly. 

Roles can be helpful in creating a rhythm for reflection about whether specific roles are serving a purpose. Is this role something we still need? 

This doesn’t mean you end up letting people go, hopefully by now you’ve distinguished the very separateness of the role and the person. A person is simply stewarding the role, and once that role isn’t required, they can pick up other roles that take their interest. 

A number of progressive organisations will hold some form of a governance meeting once a month where roles and responsibilities can change. It’s a chance to consistently reflect on what’s working and what’s not working when it comes to how the company is operating.

Workload can be more balanced.

I don’t want to preach that roles and responsibilities are the silver bullet; because there’s no such thing. But what I do want to make clear is that this practice can bring about greater awareness of what everyone is working on, and where their capacity is at. 

In many traditional organisations, people get nervous about conversations around capacity because they don’t want to look like there’s not enough work and get the boot, or look too busy that people may assume they can’t cope. This is all senseless, when if we had the conversation about capacity we could create more balance between us, have less burnout and boredom and have time for creativity – that thing every company keeps complaining they never have enough time for. 

When we adopt roles and responsibilities, we understand that not every role is a 9-5, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week role. There are some roles that take more of our time than others, and there are some roles we could even share. 

It is not easy for everyone to get onboard about job roles – especially when we’re all so attached to our job titles. 

We’ve been conditioned to this outdated way of working, and as I said earlier, so much of your social standing hangs on your job title. Who would you be without it? 

I’ll never forget introducing the ideas of job roles over titles in a session with a team once, and the youngest member who had just graduated from University couldn’t understand why anyone would do this when she had been told all her life to climb the corporate ladder and get the next title because that is what she had been told would get her success. 

We are conditioned to connect our worth to a title, and strive for the best of that title; even though ultimately it’s not the title that matters, but what you do that makes the difference.

As there are hundreds of companies and communities operating in this way all over the world, there are now some useful tools to help map out the roles in your organisation. These are the ones I would highly recommend you explore.

Role-up 

A digital tool that makes roles and responsibilities transparent across your company.

https://www.role-up.com/

Maptio

A tool to help you create a more dynamic organisational chart and helps to create clarity on everyone’s roles and responsibilities. 

https://maptio.com/

Peerdom

Organisational chart software that creates realistic org charts to include people’s roles and responsibilities.

https://about.peerdom.org/

GlassFrog

An agile and self-management friendly role platform.

https://www.glassfrog.com/ 

Can you define roles in a traditional organisation?  

Job roles are not exclusive to progressive organisations, even in a more traditional workplace you can still utilise the power of roles.

What about roles no-one enjoys? 

There are sometimes roles no-one enjoys doing. First of all, you have to ask yourself whether this role is vital? Is it something that’s truly needed? 

And if it is, it’s then time to determine how this role is going to be distributed. Could people share this role? Or would someone be happy to do it for a short period of time, before someone else then picks it up? 

What about when people leave? 

If an individual has been working in a progressive organisation under a roles system, this can be hard for them to present on their CV, especially if they are going back to a more traditional job role. 

In instances such as this, many organisations say that individuals can use job titles as long as it would fit the majority of their responsibilities.

Experimenting with job roles over job titles is the only way to establish if this is something that can work for your team or company. I’d highly recommend discussing this with team members before just rolling this out. There needs to be dialogue around what’s important to people about roles, and ensure there is clarity. 

Step 1 – Identify roles

As a team spend some time identifying all the roles that you perform. These need to be as specific as possible to the actual activities / responsibilities of the role. 

Step 2 – Organise the roles

Ensure there’s no doubling up by eliminating any duplicates. Then work together to clarify any of the language on the roles if it still remains ambiguous. 

Step 3 – Assign responsibilities 

With each role defined, it’s now time to ensure every role has a list of at least three core accountabilities. If it ends up being more than five, you have to start to question whether these are all relevant and necessary for this role? It’s crucial to stick with what’s essential. 

Step 4 – Indicate ownership

Now it’s time for people to pick the roles they wish to perform. In some instances people may wish to perform the same role, so here there may be a requirement for dialogue to ensure they are happy to share a role, and what that looks like, and whether they are happy to share the responsibility of that role. 

Before people take ownership, you may want to create a space for conversations about what the ideal skills are for any specific roles. This can be a good time for people to identify where their passions and strengths lie. 

The following framework is one way to help create greater clarity on roles and responsibilities. 

These areas should be completed for each role. 

A title / name of role – ensure to make it relevant to what this role does

Purpose – why does this role exist?

A list of accountabilities – what is the role responsible for?

Metrics for success – how do we know it’s going well?

Once you have established roles and responsibilities, it’s then down to creating a rhythm each month to discuss the accountabilities and how people are faring with their roles. This gives everyone a chance to share any tensions, and also highlight where a new role is required, or make space for people to switch roles. 

From my work with progressive organisations, I’m fully aware that shifting to a roles based way of working takes time and a few bumps in the road. It’s not for everyone, and as I mentioned earlier it takes more than practice and a re-designed org chart. It also takes a mindset shift, and for us to release our attachment to old beliefs around the benefits of job titles. However, if your company or team can make the shift, the benefits can quickly create a far more agile and enjoyable workplace culture. 

So, will you be experimenting with roles?