[Editor’s Note: Occasionally, we invite a guest author to write an essay about something they are passionate about related to our well-being. Brent is a colleague and friend who is crafting his own path. After being an educator and clinical pharmacy cardiology specialist for 10 years, Brent recently shifted his career by pursuing a Ph.D. in organizational science. But you don’t have to return to school or pursue a Ph.D. to craft your job!]

by Brent N. Reed

Work is a common source of stress in our lives. Many techniques for managing stress focus on its consequences, such as using a regular meditation practice to focus our minds and become more aware of thoughts. But stress can also be managed at the source by changing our interactions with work—a strategy known as job crafting.

What is job crafting?

Job crafting is proactively making changes to our experience of work, and there are two lines of thinking on how to do it. The first emerged from research by Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton, which suggests that job crafting can be accomplished in three ways: task crafting, relationship crafting, and cognitive crafting. Task crafting involves changes to our work activities, such as finding a more efficient way to do things. Relationship crafting involves changing how we interact with others, such as finding a new person (or people) to partner with on a project at work. Finally, cognitive crafting is reframing our views of work. Perhaps the best example of cognitive crafting comes from one of Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s studies, in which hospital cleaning staff found more meaning in their work when they viewed themselves as healers alongside doctors and nurses.

A more recent approach to job crafting suggests that we can craft our job by making changes to the demands of the job and the resources available. Job demands are those aspects of work that require our effort. Job demands include both challenges and hindrances. Challenge demands, such as workload, can be overcome with effort and can promote personal growth when we encounter them in the right amounts. Hindrance demands are difficult—and sometimes impossible—to overcome, and they impede our growth. Examples of hindrance demands include organizational politics and interpersonal conflict. Job resources are those aspects of work that help us manage demands, such as support from a supervisor or coworker, or characteristics of the work itself, such as having the autonomy to make decisions about how we accomplish the work. Under this model, we can craft our jobs by optimizing challenges (i.e., not too low, not too high), decreasing hindrances, and seeking resources

What does the science say about job crafting?

Job crafting can improve our experience of work in two key ways. First, job crafting can reduce burnout and some of the other harms resulting from chronic work stress. Second and perhaps more importantly, job crafting can promote positive experiences at work, such as increased meaning, fulfillment, and overall well-being. An outcome of interest in many job crafting studies is engagement—a positive, work-related state of mind. Studies show that job crafting can increase our engagement at work, especially when we take on new challenges or successfully obtain resources to help us tackle work demands.

How can you craft your job?

Regardless of the approach to job crafting that appeals to you, the overall process of putting it into action is the same:

Here’s an example of these steps in action. One of the most fulfilling parts of my job in higher education was research. But it was also one of the most challenging because of all the work involved. Many of my peers felt the same way. After reflecting on those experiences, we brainstormed a way to work together on research projects as a team. We tried the new process and were amazed to discover that we could finish more projects in the same amount of time, and we experienced a greater sense of camaraderie working together. Needless to say, we made the new process a permanent part of our jobs moving forward!

A few final thoughts

Since every job is different, some forms of job crafting may work better for you than others. If you try out a few changes and don’t find that they make your work more meaningful or fulfilling, don’t lose hope—one of the benefits of trying things for a few weeks is that it provides an opportunity to experiment and learn. By simply engaging in the process of job crafting, you may also identify some alternatives that could be used to craft a future job.

Which approach to job crafting appeals most to you? What are some examples of ways in which you’ve crafted your current job to capitalize on your strengths? Share your thoughts on job crafting by posting a comment below.

Cheers-

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