How to let your employees job craft

TWORK VS. LIFE he way jobs are designed can make the difference between someone finding meaning at work or feeling meaningless. A growing body of research suggests that “job crafting” can be a powerful tool to help employees feel renewed energy and increased control over their work lives.

Job crafting is about taking proactive action to redesign what someone does at work, essentially changing tasks, relationships, and perceptions of jobs, making them feel like “their jobs” vs. the company’s jobs. It can help your current and future employees uncover their motives, strengths and — above all — potential.

When employees feel that they can personalize their jobs, they have a greater sense of control at work and much needed clarity on where their careers are headed. It’s also a strategy that can increase employees’ productivity to drive better business outcomes. Perhaps job crafting’s best feature is that it’s a way for an employee and employer to have an open dialogue and work together to meet both parties’ needs.

Here are three ways to incorporate job crafting into your organization:

— START WITH SCIENCE: Successful job crafting depends on people understanding themselves well enough to craft a role that works for them. This is where data and assessments can come in. Few people truly understand their strengths. Skill assessments can help people understand themselves better. Well-designed assessments can decrease bias and enable job crafting based on scientifically validated principles rather than gut instincts. They also allow companies to provide their people with personalized insights about their skills and potential.

— CRAFT CHALLENGES TO MATCH PEOPLE’S POTENTIAL: Jobs are changing so fast that almost every occupation has the potential to be partly automated — so understanding future potential is more important than what someone’s done in the past.

Job crafting is a way for workers to keep pace with these shifts and experiment with a variety of activities, from taking on new responsibilities, to learning new skills and mentoring others. Offering education and training opportunities is a good starting point, but what’s even better are stretch opportunities, rotational assignments, onthe-job learning, apprenticeships and agile work assignments across various teams and functions to allow employees to apply fresh skills in new roles.

— PRIORITIZE FLEXIBLE WORK — THE NEW BALANCE: When 69% of U.S. companies say they can’t find the skills they need, employers can no longer take a blanket approach to attracting and keeping workers. Offering flexible work hours is key to attracting employees and inspiring them to stay. Focus on productivity by having clear performance metrics and trusting your employees to deliver results, whether they work from a coffee shop at dawn and dusk or at a desk from 9 to 5. Engaged employees are more enthusiastic, energetic and positive, and feel better about their job and workplace. Highly engaged workplaces can claim 41% lower absenteeism and 21% higher profitability.

These days we are able to curate anything from playlists to reading lists to wardrobe lists. It’s time to focus more on curating our job choices, so we can develop new skills, take ownership over our responsibilities, unlock our potential and maximize our impact.