Job crafting: how do you do it?

Job crafting: here is how you do it!

First of all, job crafting is different from job carving. With job carving, the focus is primarily on the work itself. You chip away at all the peripheral tasks in a role until only the core responsibilities remain. You are essentially preserving the why of the job. The bits you have removed are then reassigned to another role. Usually, job carving (and subsequently matching the right people to those restructured jobs) is handled by management and HR.

Job crafting has a different perspective. Here, the why of the individual employee is central. What is he (or she, of course) good at, and what makes them happy? By shifting tasks and priorities based on this, the role aligns better with the employee's talents and personality.

Job crafting is certainly not about just letting someone do whatever they feel like. No company can keep the lights on with such a non-committal approach. Good job crafting definitely has business benefits for the organization:

• Optimal use of in-house talent.
• It stimulates collaboration between colleagues and departments.
• Employee satisfaction increases, while absenteeism and staff turnover decrease.
• A happy employee is more productive, more innovative, and delivers higher quality.
• Stronger employer branding and a more positive image for customers.

Perhaps such an individual approach sounds like a mountain of extra time and work in a manager's already busy schedule. That is precisely not the intention.
In job crafting, it is primarily the employee themselves who needs to take action. Through intensive self-reflection and an adventurous journey of discovery into their own preferences and talents. The goal is to develop the results into a proposal for the ideal personal work situation and then discuss this with their manager. It is the task of management and HR to encourage and facilitate the employee in this process.

How do you take that step toward job crafting? Unfortunately, it is not just a matter of flipping a switch. Many employees still need to get used to this new vision of work and the control they can take over it themselves. But not all managers are equipped for this form of leadership yet, either. HR can play a leading role here.

For example, by informing the organization about the added value of job crafting, or by joining a conversation to provide support. But also consider setting up a format that allows the employee to form a picture of their most suitable personal work situation through a step-by-step plan. Preferably, use an online platform for this, so that each subsequent step can be linked to previous phases and the employee can easily click through to supporting information.

The employee's journey to the optimal personal work situation should at least include the following stages:

1. What am I working on?

In this phase, all components of the job must be inventoried. This means breaking down the current job into all its sub-tasks. What does someone actually do in a day? And how much time is spent on each part? It can help to keep a work diary for a few weeks to track this.

You can do this in an old-fashioned paper planner, of course, but a handy online overview that automatically adds up the minutes is much easier!

2. What is my personal top 10 (or 20)?

Throw all those loose puzzle pieces into a pile and put them in order of personal preference. Which tasks give the employee energy? And which tasks are the proverbial bitter pills that have to be swallowed time and again?

It is interesting to see if the tasks that take up the most time are actually in the personal top 3. If not, it immediately becomes clear why the job is starting to feel like a bad fit.

3. Discover the talent you are

Another important step is discovering someone's drivers and talents. What is someone good at, and what is actually a pitfall? Which workplace and working hours would be most ideal?

There are countless tests for this, in all sorts of gradations and for different target groups. Get good advice on your choice. A blended approach—organizing a live conversation with a coach in addition to filling out one or more online questionnaires—is highly recommended.

4. Solve the ideal puzzle

If all has gone well, the employee has now gained many new insights. About the content of the work, but also about the content of their own personality. All the individual energy drainers and energy boosters are now lined up. Now the results from step 2 can be laid next to those from step 3. With this new information, make a new top 10 of the job tasks. 

The task that deserves the title of super energy booster gets to be number 1. And the energy drainer dangles somewhat pitifully at the bottom, of course.

Can it actually be removed from the job without too much risk of damage? Then set that sub-task aside and think about whether there is perhaps a colleague with whom it would be cherished. Yes, that does take us down the path of jobcarving without noticing, that's true. 

Divide the working time you have to spend across the different components, and focus mainly as high up your top 10 as possible. Are there other wishes, such as working from home more often, different working hours, or a desk closer to the window?

Is there still a task missing that is high on the wish list, or is extra training needed? These kinds of elements also play a role in finding job satisfaction, so be sure to give them a place in the personal plan.

5. Talk to your manager

This step can be quite nerve-racking. After all, someone is coming to their manager with a very personal story. Good expectation management is essential here: the employee should not expect that all wishes can be granted one-to-one. The manager has to step out of “yes, but” mode for a moment, listen carefully, and think along in solutions as much as possible. 

If the shifts are not too big, it won't be too hard to turn the plan into a new personal job profile. If it means that the job content of colleagues also needs to be tinkered with, there is of course more work to do.

Then it is time for a team conversation, in which the different wishes, talents, and time spent can be traded back and forth, like a game of cards, in complete openness and trust.

Whatever comes out of it: document the new agreements well. It should be clear what can be expected from each employee, but also which topics you are better off going to a colleague for. Not only because that other person is much better at it than you, but also because they actually enjoy doing it. 

The power of online

Job crafting involves several phases. The employee has to do a lot of "homework," and when working it out with the manager and potentially colleagues, there will be a lot of puzzling involved with all the insights. As we mentioned before, a digital platform tailored to your organization's needs is very useful. You can store everything in it, from time tracking to job profiles, and from motivation analyses to training plans.

Want to know more about what this can do for you? Schedule a call and discover the possibilities.