The Benefits of Job Crafting
Do you dream of finding your "perfect" job one day? Meaningful and satisfying work has a great impact on one’s happiness and well-being. This is especially important since many people spend so much time at work. Rather than jumping from job to job in hope of finding the "perfect" job, you can change how the work is completed to better align with your interests, values, and strengths. This is known as job crafting. All jobs, to various degrees, offer opportunities for job crafting. By doing so, you could have more influence over your professional career and improve the fit between yourself and your job.
Want to learn more about job crafting? Check out the ebook Job Crafting: The Art of Redesigning a Job by Davide de Gennaro or the book Personalization at Work: How HR can use Job Crafting to Drive Performance, Engagement and Wellbeing by Rob Baker. You can also watch a TEDx Talk by Rob Baker about job crafting.
Strength training at work
Character strengths can be very helpful at work. They can boost your confidence, strengthen relationships, reduce stress, and help with problem solving. To discover your top strengths, check out the following books at the library.
The Strengths-Based Workbook for Stress Relief: a Character Strengths Approach to Finding Calm in the Chaos of Daily Life by Ryan M. Niemic.
The Power of Character Strengths: Appreciate and Ignite Your Positive Personality by Ryan M. Niemic and Robert E. McGrath.
Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, et al.
Take steps toward crafting your job
Decide what you want your ideal job to look like and use the following three crafting strategies:
Task crafting: Employees may take initiative to change the tasks they complete, the way they work, or the timing of their tasks. By doing so, they exert a level of control over their work, which has been shown to increase satisfaction. This involves improving the way that things are done, using skills you already have, or using your knowledge. It involves finding chances to play to your strengths.
Relational crafting: Consider strategies to improve the interactions you have with other people. For example, employees can decide how and when to approach coworkers, or how much they participate in workplace social events.
Cognitive crafting: Modify your perspective of the tasks and meanings of your work. Reflect on what you believe to be the true influence of what you do at work.
Determine the possible impact of "crafting" on your work.
You need to think about your customers, your coworkers, your manager or supervisor, and the company or organization as a whole. Effective job crafting means achieving a win-win outcome. For example, you might have a significant amount of expertise and offer to train new hires. This can help build your leadership skills, interact with colleagues from other departments, and introduce yourself to new employees.
Act to put positive change in place.
You have the opportunity to improve this scenario by job crafting. You can determine what will make you feel more appreciated and productive and decide how to implement those improvements. One requirement is that your choices must benefit your organization.
Monitor, adjust, and keep going.
Make sure it delivers you the results you desire, check to see whether your employer, colleagues and customers are satisfied with the situation, and confirm that it truly fits into your larger work environment.
Need some more guidance with crafting your job? Book a free one-on-one appointment with a Career Coach in Residence
Post written by Esther Shin, 2022-23 Career Coach in Residence.
The Career Coaches in Residence program is generously supported by Linda Dagg and Kenneth Wiener and RBC.
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