What makes a job meaningful? Helping others? Salary or other perks? Flexibility? A sense of autonomy? The answers are as varied as the team members in your organization. What we do know is that perceiving a job as meaningful can be the difference between employees staying and contributing their best work – or moving on to greener pastures. Our last article looked at why meaningful work matters, but what steps can organizations take to make it happen? Let’s take a look at one example: job crafting. It’s not a new idea, but one that’s getting more attention since the pandemic and resulting changes in the workplace.

What is job crafting? It’s about taking proactive steps and actions to redesign what team members do at work, essentially changing the tasks, relationships and perceptions of jobs. The main idea is that employees can stay in the same role, but get more meaning out of their jobs by simply changing what they do and the “whole point” behind it. Job crafting is creating positions that align with employees’ strengths, passions and motives.

Here’s an example: A marketing analyst spends her days examining data, researching and looking at trends. While she’s great at her job, she would really like to branch out and add some creative projects to her routine. So, she requests a meeting with the social media marketing manager at her organization to learn more about what he does and how she can incorporate her expertise to help on the creative side. Her boss works with her to help add more of these types of projects into her job.

Job crafting is broken down into three key types:

• Task Crafting: Changing responsibilities. This is altering the type, scope, sequence or number of tasks that make up a job to improve it in some way. For example, a long-time team member could offer to mentor new employees. The marketing analyst example above also uses task crafting.
• Relationship Crafting: Changing interactions. This is altering the people that employees typically interact with in a job. For example, leaders and team members can form new interdepartmental task forces.
• Cognitive Crafting: Changing mindset. This is altering the way team members interpret the tasks they’re responsible for and focusing on how their efforts help the big picture of an organization. For example, call center workers can receive first-hand accounts of the people they’re helping and how their job impacts the lives of others.

It’s no surprise that job crafting has a multitude of benefits for organizations, including happier, more engaged employees, less turnover and enhanced performance. Whether you’re interested in learning more about job crafting or other methods to help team members find more meaning in their roles, Leah M. Joppy and Associates is ready to help. Call us at 301-670-0051 or email us at leah@lmja.com and let’s start tackling any employee unengagement issues now!