What would your ideal work day look like? How would you describe your current job? Is it just a day-to-day routine and you are longing for the week-end every single week? Or, at the opposite, you think ”I just love my job”!
If it is the first one, don’t worry you’re not alone.
Often, when you feel a certain dissatisfaction at work, you think that you can’t do anything about it. I am always surprised by how many people complain about their work, their professional relationships or this promotion that is just not happening. At the same time, they don’t take any action to change their situation.
What is ”jobcrafting”?
Jobcrafting is a proactive behaviour that people use when they feel that changes in their work are needed.
(Petrou et al., 2012)
it is the process of people redefining and re-imagining their job designs in personally meaningful ways. These changes in return can influence the meaningfulness of the work.
This approach can also benefit to companies. In a survey carried out by Workhuman research institute, employees were asked this question
What makes you stay in your company?
68% of respondents chose ”I find my work useful, meaningful” in their 3 top choices
66% also chose ”My team- I really appreciate the people I work with”’
…. Before salary, corporate culture or a good relationship with their manager.
3 ways ”jobcrafting can change your work and even your career
1. Jobcrafting through changing tasks
By adding tasks: you can add whole tasks or projects that you find meaningful into your job. One of my client, VP Revenue strategy felt her job was not challenging enough. Therefore, she decided to mentor ”High potential profiles”. By doing this, she found her job meaningful and actually developed a new skill very useful for the next job she is looking for.
Doing more of what you love: you can allocate more time, energy and attention to what you really enjoy in your job
Redesigning task: you can redefine existing tasks by giving them more meaning. For example, an experienced salesperson, could bring a new colleague along on sales calls and train him at the same time. Helping a new colleague makes this task more interesting.
2. Jobcrafting through changing relationships
How would you define the interactions you have at work with your peers, managers or collaborators? Several researches* have shown that good quality relationships (through which employees experience mutual trust, positive outlook and good energy) have a significant impact on employee engagement and therefore company’s performance. (*Dutton and Heaphy 2003 Ibarra 2003)
It can be about building new relationships. So in the Tedtalk “Job Crafting – Amy Wrzesniewski on creating meaning in your own work”. demonstrates how hospital janitors have developed a sense of pride, dignity and worth into their work by developing relationships with patients and their families.
It can also be about changing the nature of your interactions at work: it’s the conscious decision to change the way you interact. If you are a manager, you may have a direct management style. Changing the nature of your interactions at work can mean delegating more. It can also mean being more attentive when someone suggests a new idea instead of dismissing it because you feel you don’t have the time.
You can finally choose to ‘adapt’ to people. For example, Fletcher (1998) found in her study that engineers who interacted with people from other departments using more understanding vocabulary were more successful in their work. She calls this way of interacting ”mutual empowering”. Developing mentoring and coaching with less experienced people is an effective way to adapt relationships at work and find more meaning.
2. Jobcrafting through changing your mindset
Unlike the first two strategies, this latest one does not imply objective or concrete change. Actually, it strives to develop a solution-oriented mindset and a more positive attitude towards the challenges we all can experiment at work.
Ask yourself
- How does your work contribute to the success of your company?
- How does your work have a positive impact on your life?
- If you are experiencing a difficult situation at work, focus on the best outcome possible: what should you think, feel and how you should behave to maximize the chances of achieving this goal?
The prequisites to optimize jobcrafting
What I observe in my coaching practice is that job crafting is only possible once people have clarified three key elements: their motivations, talents and their passions.
Indeed, developing this self-knowledge allows you to get
The clarity of who you are and want you do
The Confidence and ability to proactively take action
The Courage to rise up, speak up and get out of your comfort zone
Do you want to jobcraft with me?
to It is by clearly identifying both the different strategies of job crafting and its prerequisites that I designed my coaching offer ”A compass for my career”. For example, before breaking the corporate glass ceiling, the first step you can take is breaking your own personal glass ceilings. Change starts with ourselves. However, at the beginning of coaching, we necessarily have a very partial vision of what our goals entail.
When I started coaching, like so many other coaches, I used the rather common approach of ‘packages’ with different topics such as ‘transition’, ”self-confidence” ”serenity” and ”clarity”. Eventually, I realized that something was missing because whatever our challenge is, we all want to have all of these . Now, I offer a complete and holistic coaching program.
Indeed, challenges are different from a person to another: looking for more meaning, improving interpersonal relationships, thinking of a professional transition, developing, adjusting to a new managerial position, etc. …. On the other hand, through the diversity of women I have worked with, the foundations for making a significant and lasting change are always the same:
1. Developing self-awareness of our talents and value
2. Developing a solution-focused mindset
3. Communicating with authenticity and influence
4. Crafting a career strategy and build a supportive network to achieve our goals
Clarity+ Confidence+ Courage = A more successful and authentic Career
Depending on very specific needs, I provide coaching that is both structured and flexible. You get access to a wide range of resources on line (exercises, videos) to deepen and expand the work done during our coaching sessions.
I have also included an emotional intelligence test the EQ.i 2.0 of ‘Multi Health System”. It just fastens the process of self-awareness because it improves and fastens self-awareness of your strengths and areas of growth.
Eventually, change takes time. A compass for my career runs over 5 months with 10 coaching sessions
I’d love to explore with you the possibility of working together! you can book a free discovery session (no strings attached) so we can review where you are now and explore how I can help you
