Crafting Your Own Job

Jobs have to meet a lot of criteria nowadays. In addition to paying the best possible wages, work should also serve the purpose of self-fulfillment; it should be meaningful, satisfying and offer a good balance between labor and leisure. Ideally, it should also contribute to a good cause as well. “People’s expectations have gone up in parallel with their level of education, and their demands are only growing stronger, especially in times of skilled labor shortages,” says Georg Bauer, a health and labor researcher from the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute at UZH. Bauer’s research focuses on the question of what constitutes good work.

Currently he’s turning his attention to the topic of “job crafting”, a term from workplace and organizational psychology. The idea behind job crafting is that employees shape their job as much as possible according to their individual needs, interests and strengths. As a result, they are healthier, more satisfied and more motivated. This idea isn’t completely new. “People have always tried to mold their jobs into work that they like and that can make a difference,” says Bauer. This is also possible in sectors where, at first glance, there seems to be little room for autonomy – for example, in cleaning jobs.

The creators of the job crafting concept, American organizational psychologists Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton, recognized this in a study in 2000. The researchers found that cleaning staff at a hospital interpreted their tasks in very different ways. While some simply cleaned, others put a much more creative spin on their work. They chatted with patients, exchanged information with the ward staff and generally saw their job in the broader context of hospital hygiene and thus as a contribution to everyone’s health. As the two researchers demonstrated, these cleaners were much more motivated and satisfied with their job than those who simply cleaned.

This was also confirmed by a study published this year by Bauer and his team, which showed that both job engagement and psychological well-being increase the more employees are able to actively align their professional and private lives with their needs.

 According to the researchers, this means that companies should be actively encouraging their employees to take initiative and shape their jobs in creative ways. Job crafting not only reduces stress and increases employee satisfaction, but it can also improve the quality of work for customers – ultimately benefiting everyone.

Changing one’s own tasks is the third pillar of job crafting, alongside having a positive view of one’s job and actively shaping relationships with colleagues and customers. For job crafting to work, however, companies need to undergo a change in their culture towards one that relies on trust and reduces hierarchies. The exciting thing about this approach is that – unlike the usual top-down method where well-intentioned improvements to working conditions for everyone are initiated by management – it is the employees themselves who decide how they want to shape their work, says Bauer.

And because people are very different, these self-directed changes can lead to completely different results for the same task. While some prefer to complete clearly defined tasks, others prefer to work more autonomously. Some rely more on collaboration and exchange within the team, while others prefer to work alone in peace and quiet. Job crafting can also mean that employees proactively take on new tasks that they find particularly interesting while gradually handing over others.

Bauer is convinced that digitalization, which is creating new working conditions and opening up new possibilities in many industries, is an opportunity to promote people’s ability to independently shape their jobs. This is because digital technology allows for increasing flexibility when it comes to deciding when and where to work, and also because of the growing availability of digital tools to support us in our work. According to Bauer, it is the much-hyped AI tools in particular that offer completely new possibilities for job crafting. He recommends not following every trend, but thoughtfully selecting tools that are tailored to strengthen one’s own skills and needs. That way they can help you do your job better and create more enjoyment in the process.

The success of a job crafting strategy is ultimately up to the individual employee. Having teams that cultivate a positive and appreciative work environment is a good starting point for job crafting. “When the social environment is right, people are more likely to dare to try something out, to do things differently than usual or to ask for new or different tasks,” says Bauer. When it comes to job crafting, good teams also allow you to exchange ideas about challenges, share successful strategies and support one another. The Crafting Playbook, which is currently being jointly developed by Zurich’s universities as part of the Digitization Initiative of the Zurich Universities (DIZH), is intended to contribute to successful job crafting in the future. The smartphone app aims to playfully encourage people to consciously shape their professional and personal lives. Once the prototype is fully developed, the team behind the playbook will launch the free app, helping to further spread the idea of job crafting.

This approach has yet to become widespread in the working world. As shown by the 2022 McKinsey study Meet the psychological needs of your people – all your people, less educated and lower-paid workers in particular have significantly fewer opportunities for a positive work experience. This means that there is room for improvement in this area.

Bauer believes that when it comes to future development, companies should ideally pursue two goals. “They should consider how to develop and optimize products and services in a way that satisfies the needs of customers as well as employees, allowing employees to perceive their work as meaningful,” he says, pointing out that this would be a true win-win situation.