Jobcrafting: shaping your job rather than fitting the mould

Extensive job descriptions, fear of not finding our vocation, quest for a meaningful job or getting obsessed with our dream job... what if all these problems had the same solution? That of designing your job rather than considering your job description as an exhaustive to-do list. 

What is Job crafting? 

In Europe, the idea is slowly beginning to stir the curiosity of young employees and recruiters alike. But in the United States, Job crafting has been theorised for over a decade. Its principle: designing your job so that it looks like it’s been made for you. 

In their paper published in 2007 by the Ross School of Business, Amy Wrzesniewski, Jane Dutton and Justin Berg define this neologism as “actions taken by employees to design their own jobs in order to increase their job satisfaction”. Basically, anything that improves involvement and fulfilment at work. And with 25% of British people finding their job lacks of meaning, this concept is worth considering. 

Designing your job rather than dreaming of it

Rather than creating jobs that are defined from above, jobcrafting reverses the values so that the person on the job is the one who defines it. There are several ways to design your job: 

• cognitive crafting: changing the way we perceive our missions and their meaning. 
• task crafting: changing the number or nature of the tasks we are assigned. 
• relational crafting: changing our social interactions in our work environment to change the way we view our role. That is, operating proactively with other teams rather than waiting to be summoned. 

Job crafting in practice

Amy Wrzesniewski, one of the authors of the paper “What is Job Crafting and Why Does It Matter?” insists on the fact that Job crafting is not a new practice. Employees always find ways to adapt their role to their wishes - whether managers like it or not. Nevertheless, theorising the concept illustrates its benefits for both employees and organisations, therefore encouraging companies to adopt a Job crafting culture. 

There are several ways to do this, such as boosting employee autonomy - as if we needed another argument against micromanagement! - but also clearly communicate the company's missions and strategic objectives so that everyone can fit into them and find the means to achieve them. Obviously, Job crafting does not mean doing whatever you want, whenever you want. To find meaning in one's job, each Job crafter must be able to contribute to the organisation's goals. 

Rather than simply encouraging the practice, some companies are turning it into a management technique. This is the case of Morning Star, a Californian tomato sauce manufacturer. At Morning Star, employees take over the job of their predecessor upon arrival. Then, after a year, they are asked to rewrite their job description, Adam Grant tells the Wall Street Journal. But beware: every employee who rewrites his/her job description must meet two conditions: explain how it contributes to the company's mission and obtain the approval of his/her main colleagues. Therefore, there is no risk that John from the Accounting Department suddenly decides to become the company's TikTok Chief Officer.