Job Crafting: Making the Most of the Job You Have

Feeling flat, disorganised and harassed this Black Friday in the build-up to Christmas? Want to regain control and improve your well-being at work?

Here we introduce the concept of “job crafting” and explain why playing to your interests and strengths will make you happier and bring new meaning to the day job.

What is Job Crafting?

Job crafting is the process of an individual redefining and reimagining their job in personally meaningful ways. That is to say, making the most of the job they’ve been asked to do and crafting it in a way that plays to their interests and strengths.

It can be achieved in three ways:

Task Crafting – adding, emphasising or building on tasks you already find meaningful in your job. It might also include redesigning unfulfilling tasks by using new IT systems or techniques to make the work easier or more interesting.

Relational Crafting – Reframe the relationships you have with others by changing the way you interact with others, who you interact with, and how frequently.  

Cognitive Crafting – This is about changing your perspective, boundaries and rediscovering meaning in your outputs. Reminding yourself why you do what you do and how even small tasks impact others.

Similarly, thinking differently about people’s motivations and responsibilities can help you take things less personally and ultimately lead to a more complementary and fulfilling outcome.

Making It Meaningful: It’s All About You

Ok, so most of us can’t change our job – but we can change how we do our job, which in turn changes how we feel about our job.

Research shows that when we feel what we’re doing is meaningful this increases our engagement by a massive 250%.

Was there ever a time when you felt excitement, enthusiasm and pride in what you do? Has that magic dwindled? By reconnecting with what you personally enjoy doing and find interesting, your stress levels will go down and you’ll feel happier.

Taking Control

Most of us may job craft on an unconscious level to at least some extent during our working day, such as doing the tasks we enjoy first. However, consciously harnessing the power of job crafting means proactively approaching your job in a way that is uniquely fulfilling to create lasting meaning and increase your happiness.

Have you tried job crafting? What was your experience? We’d love to hear from you.

Email us your thoughts.

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash.