Why?

When was the last time you felt like this at work? Unfortunately many of us feel our job isn’t as interesting or worthwhile as it could be.

The practice of ‘job crafting’ helps to make our work more fulfilling and engaging. It encourages us to highlight aspects of our job that fit well with our personality, interests and strengths. It then suggests we find ways to build more opportunities for these within our work.

Proactively looking at our role in this way can lead to higher job satisfaction, engagement and make our jobs more meaningful to us. It can also provide us with a challenge and the opportunity to build on our existing skills.

How?

A simple way to begin job crafting is:

• Spend time noting all the different day to day acts/responsibilities that make up your role. We often do more than we think.
• Think about how these different acts/responsibilities make you feel. Are there parts that you particularly enjoy – e.g. interacting with others, taking responsibility for a specific area, working independently…
• Recognise your personal and professional strengths. To what extent does your current role utilise these? This can be done by reflecting on what you’re good at, asking other people for their input, as well as trying out one of the strengths tools listed below.

When you’ve identified what you enjoy most and where your strengths lie, begin to note down small ways you can start to create more opportunities for these in your job. While some of your changes will be possible immediately, others may require discussion with management to be able to build them successfully into your role.

After actively engaging with the practice for a few weeks take the opportunity to see if you’ve noticed a difference in the way you feel about your job. What changes have you made and how have these impacted on your day to day enjoyment of your role? Are there any areas you can build on further?

Job crafting is an ongoing process you can revisit and engage with as and when needed.

Further Information

• Berg, J.M., Dutton, J.E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2007). What is Job Crafting and Why Does It Matter?
• Strengths Profile
• VIA Character Strengths
• Clapperton, G. & Warr, P. (2009) The Joy of Work? Jobs Happiness and You. Taylor & Francis