In our experience as human resource professionals leading and managing teams within organizations, we have found that job personalization — that is, fitting jobs to employees as opposed to fitting employees to jobs— is an ideal approach to maximize employee engagement.
Employees disengage the more time they spend in predefined roles lacking growth opportunities. Although concerned leaders try to address this problem in many ways through teamwork, mentorship, and incentive programs, their concerns miss a simple but pivotal point, which is employees are engaged through engaging jobs. Thus, job crafting can be a useful tool to improve one’s job. Although different interventions have been developed to support employees in their job crafting process, there are limitations regarding their suitability for continuous and autonomous job crafting in the home environment particularly considering the Covid-19 era in which we all find ourselves.
A few months back, our team did a retrospect on the present industry and workplace changes we are all experiencing and the effects it has had on our role, not to mention the business overall. Also, its effect on our work culture which has now become mainly remote. We are all undergoing a societal change due to the ongoing pandemic that has permanently accelerated the work-from-home trend in observance of Covid-19 protocol. Job crafting becomes the activity by which an employee designs the activities within one’s job. This has been recognized as a way for employees to optimize their job to fit their personal profiles, which is an effective way to increase work engagement. At KUSI Consulting, we often speak about the employee experience which is similar to job crafting in that they both allow room for personalization and ownership.
Positioning HR and your organization through the job crafting phase
Some selective roles require physical presence while others can be performed remotely. The human resource role has a distinct advantage in that the majority of operations can be carried out remotely when one has access to stable internet connectivity and resources. It is not easy adapting to remote work, especially if you are used to working from a bustling sociable office and are a people person. Remote work, although challenging, especially for introverts, can create a level of comfort for employees and provide them the confidence it takes to become independent decision-makers, as well as more focused. Overall, working remotely has a positive effect on productivity, leadership, creativity, and performance.
At KUSI Consulting, we have found that when creating new jobs around individuals, it is necessary to approach each situation based on the personality of the person we are engaging with. Each persona requires a different approach. Employee proactivity is a critical component to enable organizational and personal competitive advantage in a continuously changing economy. Therefore, employee empowerment may enable the creation of personalized working environments through self-motivation, determination, and innovation thereby optimizing employee work tasks and resources.
Bruning and Campion (2018) found through their qualitative study involving 246 interviews and evaluation of 433 job descriptions that value additive models of employee proactivity within organizational working components can increase performance, engagement, and role satisfaction however, limitations exist due to occupational differences.
Job Crafting: the way to employee’s satisfaction and productivity in 2021
2020 was no doubt a game-changer for HR and organizations. It not only propelled us to the future of work but also forced businesses to make the employee experience a reality. Employees today don't want to be just another number; they want to feel listened to, understood, and cared for by their organization thus delivering a personalized benefits scheme, which is able to accommodate the individual's interests and life goals, is instrumental in ensuring employees remain with the organization and have the support they need to work at their optimal best. Consequently, here are a few factors to consider in job crafting leading to job satisfaction and productivity.
Self-reflection & motivation
Employees should play an active role in job-crafting and goal setting. This will motivate them even more and help them to reflect. Reflection is a significant part of job crafting. When employees are committed to executing their job-crafting plan, they should be aware of their personal goals and how the execution of these goals affects their job satisfaction. Because the home environment limits the amount of personal support, there ought to be appropriate direction and frameworks set up to upgrade self-motivation. Here, the employee must define a goal, after which (s) he develops an action plan. After the execution of the plan, it is then monitored through self-reflection. In light of this, the outcomes are evaluated based on whether it affects the future or how it can be improved to be more effective in the future. Afterward, the plan can be re-executed, new objectives set, and adjusted.
Personalizing with Choice
In addition to making personalization more meaningful, choices and decisions must be tied closely to the needs of various segments of the workforce and should be diverse enough to satisfy those needs. Employers need to find a balance between providing meaningful choices and overwhelming employees with too many options. At the same time, organizations ought to consider the cost of potential benefits to staying within budget since it’s the time to weigh the trade-offs between the value an employee brings and its associated cost.
In conclusion, this creates teams that are more effective and allows HR Professionals to place a premium on hiring for talent and insight regardless of some possible gaps inexperience. This we believe will change the direction of employee engagement and lead to satisfaction and productivity in 2021 and beyond.
Get in touch with KUSI Consulting for more on job crafting and job personalization via phone or via irene@kusiconsulting.com. You can also read this article and more on www.hrfocusuniverse.com.