Job-crafting

In my blog in early 2022, I wrote about retaining your top talent in the midst of the “great resignation”, I’ve invited some of my esteemed colleagues to write about the kinds of things leaders need to pay attention to and this week I’d like to introduce you to Marie-Claire O’Kane. Here Marie talks about how leaders can encourage job-crafting to retain employees.

The impact of leaders on employees’ experience

I’ve been reflecting recently on two very different conversations I had with my superiors in a previous job, following a return to work after maternity leave.

In the first meeting, the leader asked, “So Marie-Claire, what is it you want to focus on in your career at this firm?”

In a meeting with another leader a few days later, I expressed wanting to pursue my interests as part of my job role. The leader’s response was “well, shouldn’t you feel lucky that you have a job at all?”

Both had an impact on me. One inspired me. The other was uncomfortably demotivating.

Leaders can have a profound impact on employees’ experience at work. Leaders who listen to their employees have been shown to increase job satisfaction and as a result, lower the likelihood of employees leaving (1). Authentic leadership has been linked to job performance (2).

But failing to meet employees’ expectations is risky for businesses. Potential consequences for organisations include an increase in turnover intentions (3), decreased job satisfaction and performance (4) and reduced work engagement (5).

Organisations face great uncertainty in the current climate of globalisation, intense technological change and a market where high performing employees have a choice of where they can work (6); and they expect a working environment that accounts for their personal values and circumstances. Where employers support individualisation of employees’ careers, they stand to benefit from a more committed workforce.

Individualisation at work: The benefits of job crafting

I was privileged to interview senior women at an investment bank recently. A number hoped that working from home during COVID had paved the way for employees to be able to “design their own week”.

Job crafting is an individualised work design that has successfully been implemented in a number of firms. It relies on employees taking the initiative to manage their workload, and has many associated benefits for employers and employees. Job crafting (7) is:

1. Cognitively perceiving your work in new ways to get the best out of yourself and those around you
2. Shifting/grouping tasks to be able to work efficiently and to allow for reflection and thinking time
3. Using and building your network to learn and be inspired to progress and keep motivated.

Examples include up-skilling by shadowing in-house specialists in order to increase promotion chances; developing a training course for colleagues on a particular interest or findings at work which could benefit others; sharing techniques used in personally securing a sale which other team members could incorporate into client conversations, or grouping necessary “admin” tasks together to make space for more challenging and interesting work.

How many of us jump from task to task without taking the time to pause and reflect on which aspects of work are motivating and meaningful, how we plan our work in tandem with our personal lives, how we optimise our time to do more of those activities that bring us joy and manage more mundane, less enjoyable tasks efficiently so they do not dominate our time?

Job crafting should allow us to find breaks in the week to do things we love – like exercising or catching up with friends or colleagues – interweaving work and personal lives to maintain a sense of control and support well-being.

Is this really a feasible working model when trying to run a business?

I remember when I first recommended job crafting to one leader. Suffice to say, they needed convincing. “But we have a business to run. We can’t have every employee determining their own job description and schedule. How do we meet our strategy? How do we keep our customers happy? How do we maintain our bottom line?

This is a natural reaction. And done badly, differences in arrangements between colleagues can lead to the perception of unjust treatment (8,9), as a result of favouritism from a supervisor, or exceptions to rules (10).

But managed properly, there are tangible benefits for businesses too. In recent studies, employees have commented that job crafting has resulted in their job being more “meaningful, engaging and satisfying” (7,11), whilst also contributing to work performance (12), organisational commitment (13), and work engagement (14,15) and learning the tools to be more adaptive to change, leading to both employee and organisational sustainability (11).

What to consider when implementing job crafting

So to reap the benefits of job individualisation, we come back to that conversation between leader and direct report.

A negotiation and common understanding of each others’ needs is critical.

I have developed this checklist to support leaders to shift their thinking towards individualised working. It is based on my own experience and drawn from prevalent researchers and practitioners in this space (16,17,18,19):

1. Listen, don’t instruct. And ask questions. What do your employees want? What do you want? How can you work together to meet each others’ expectations?
2. Lead by example. Demonstrate how you are managing your working and personal life to manage your own circumstances and maintain a healthy balance. How are you job crafting?
3. Prevent the temptation to micromanage. Give employees autonomy to succeed – and to “fail” – and therefore give them control with flexible boundaries.
4. Open doors for employees to pursue developmental opportunities. Put them in touch with contacts who can support them. Be open to training opportunities employees want to pursue.
5. Expose employees to the impact their role has on business success. How have customers benefitted from the work they do?
6. Take the time to understand employees’ strengths and encourage individuals to harness their strengths.
7. Focus on job outcomes and not “face time” or a prescriptive work schedule.

An understanding of business culture and change principles is critical first

Any such change demands an understanding of how to change culture, particularly in large or mid-sized businesses. For example, publishing a policy laying out a new work approach and simply asking people to read it will not suffice. Promoting “early adopters” who pilot the change and can demonstrate its benefits is important. Change champions are key to driving change at a team or functional level.

Whatever is necessary, individualisation of working conditions is frequently becoming an expectation from employees. The priority of work over non-working lives is becoming redundant.

Organisations stand to benefit from empowering employees to take their own initiative in relation to their career. Investment in supporting models such as job crafting need to be handled carefully but businesses can reap the benefits such as more commitment from employees, reduced turnover, lower absenteeism, (13) and more motivated staff.

Give it a go…

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Biography

Marie-Claire O’Kane spent fifteen years working as a transformation and change consultant for firms such as Ernst and Young. She now advises businesses and employees how to thrive, with a specific focus on individualisation at work, the supervisor/employee relationship and building self-belief. She is also working towards a PhD in Organisational Psychology on thriving at work.

If you would like to contact Marie-Claire to find out more about her work, email mcokane79@gmail.com or message her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-claire-o-kane-b7b5b5137/)

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References

1. Bregenzer, A., Milfelner, B., Šarotar Žižek, S., & Jiménez, P. (2020). Health-Promoting Leadership and Leaders’ Listening Skills Have an Impact on the Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention.International Journal of Business Communication, 232948842096370.https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488420963700
2. Özer, Ö., Uğurluoğlu, Ö., Sungur, C., & Çirakli, Ü. (2019). The Relationship Between Authentic Leadership, Performance and Intention to Quit the Job of Nurses. Hospital Topics, 97(3), 73–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/00185868.2019.1614893
3. Moquin, R., Riemenschneider, C. K., & Wakefield, R. L. (2019). Psychological Contract and Turnover Intention in the Information Technology Profession. Information Systems Management, 36(2), 111–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2019.1587574
4. Zhao, H., Wayne, S. J., Glibkowski, B. C., & Bravo, J. (2007). The Impact of Psychological Contract Breach on Work-Related Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis. PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY , 60, 647–680. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2007.00087.x
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6. Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H., & Axelrod, B. (2001). The War for Talent (Illustrated). Harvard Business Review Press. https://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Talent-Ed-Michaels/dp/1578514592/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=9781578514595&linkCode=qs&qid=1632843578&qsid=259-6029667-7108101&s=books&sr=1-1&sres=1578514592&srpt=ABIS_BOOK
7. Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work. In Source: The Academy of Management Review (Vol. 26, Issue 2). https://www.jstor.org/stable/259118
8. Greenberg, J., Roberge, M.-É., Ho, V. T., & Rousseau, D. M. (2004). Fairness in idiosyncratic work arrangements: Justice as an i-deal. In Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management (Vol. 23). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-7301(04)23001-8
9. Rousseau, D. M., & Ho, V. T. (2006). I-deals: Idiosyncratic Terms in Employment Relationships. The Academy of Management Review. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2006.22527470
10. Rousseau, D. M., Tomprou, M., & Simosi, M. (2016). Negotiating flexible and fair idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) §. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2016.07.004
11. le Blanc, P. M., Demerouti, E., & Bakker, A. (2017). How Can I Shape My Job to Suit Me Better? Job Crafting for Sustainable Employees and Organizations: An International Perspective. In N. Chmiel, F. Fraccaroli, & M. Sverke (Eds.), An Introduction to Work and Organizational Psychology: An International Perspective (pp. 48–63). Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119168058.ch3
12. Leana, C., Appelbaum, E., & Shevchuk, I. (2009). Work process and quality of care in early childhood education: The role of job crafting. Academy of Management Journal, 52(6), 1169–1192. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2009.47084651
13. Ghitulescu, B. E. (2006). SHAPING TASKS AND RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK: EXAMINING THE ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF EMPLOYEE JOB CRAFTING.
14. Bakker, A., Tims, M., & Derks, D. (2012). Proactive personality and job performance: The role of job crafting and work engagement. Human Relations, 65(10), 1359–1378. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726712453471
15. Petrou, P., Demerouti, E., Peeters, M. C. W., Schaufeli, W. B., & Hetland, J. (2012). Crafting a job on a daily basis: Contextual correlates and the link to work engagement. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(8), 1120–1141. https://doi.org/10.1002/JOB.1783
16. Baker, R. (2020). Personalization at work: How HR Can Use Job Crafting to Drive Performance, Engagement and Wellbeing (1st ed.). Kogan Page
17. Wang, H.-J., & Demerouti, E. (2016). A review of job crafting research: The role of leader behaviors in cultivating successful job crafters. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335421209
18. Itzchakov, G. & Kluger, A. N. (2018). The Power of Listening in Helping People Change.
19. Kluger, A. N., & Zaidel, K. (2013). Are Listeners Perceived as Leaders? International Journal of Listening, 27(2), 73–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2013.754283