Key takeaways
- Job crafting can change tasks, working relationships or how someone understands their contribution.
- Start with the employee’s proposed change and the work the role still needs to deliver.
- Discuss effects on colleagues and arrange support before redistributing responsibilities.
- Try a manageable change, then review the work and feedback with those involved.
Job crafting means changing aspects of a role to better fit an employee's strengths, interests or sense of purpose. Those changes can involve the tasks, working relationships or how someone understands their contribution.[1]
Job crafting is employee-initiated. This guide focuses on discussing proposed changes with the manager and colleagues when responsibilities, capacity or shared work are affected. Start with what the employee wants to change and what the role needs to deliver.
Task crafting
An employee might adjust how they complete a task, use an existing skill more often or propose a new responsibility. Discuss the work the role still needs to deliver and who else would be affected.
Writing a different job description does not resolve a gap in capacity. Agree which tasks change, who takes responsibility and whether the employee needs training.
Relational crafting
Discuss which working relationships help the employee learn or complete their work. They may want to collaborate with another department, find a mentor or change how they ask for feedback.
Check that the other people have time and understand the purpose. A new relationship should not silently transfer extra work to a colleague.
Cognitive crafting
An employee can reconsider how their tasks contribute to a wider goal. Discuss the people who use the work and the result it supports.
Keep that conversation connected to the actual role. A different way of describing the work cannot fix a workload or responsibility problem on its own.
Agree a change and review it
Ask the employee to describe the proposed change, the reason and its effect on the team. Choose a manageable first step and a date to discuss what happened.
Review the work and feedback from those involved. The talent management guide can help connect changes in responsibilities with development needs and goals.
For an illustrative Implementation Manager at an open-banking company, the employee might propose turning recurring internal questions into a short colleague reference. The manager and content owner agree which existing task makes room for that work, who checks the explanations and when the trial ends. At the review, ask whether colleagues could find the answers and whether the employee still delivered the agreed role work. The open banking employee journey supplies the wider team context.
- 01
Proposed change
Describe the task or relationship the employee wants to change and why it matters to their work.
- 02
Boundaries and support
Record what stays required, whom the change affects and what time, learning or approval is needed.
- 03
Review
Choose a trial period and review the employee’s experience alongside work delivered and feedback from affected colleagues.
Sources
- Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 179–201. https://spinup-000d1a-wp-offload-media.s3.amazonaws.com/faculty/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/06/Craftingajob_Revisioningemployees_000.pdf
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