People, Culture and Inclusion
Juliet Flynn
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For the Leadership Circles this month we will look at the idea of “job crafting”. This has been around for a little while but has gained much more attention recently.
This TEDx video is a great summary:
What does this mean for us as leaders? There are some potential anxieties I can predict:
- What if everyone crafted their job away from the core need of the team?
- How can I have effective performance conversations when I don’t have control of what my people are doing?
- What’s the point of having me as a leader if my team are making their own decisions about what to do and how to do it?
I think an important consideration here is one of scale. Job crafting proponents are not suggesting that staff can create their own job from scratch – but tweak it to make it more personalised, motivating and, crucially, meaningful.
Our leadership roles are more than directing, and shouldn’t be constraining. If we have confidence that our team colleagues will make great decisions about when and how to craft our jobs then we can see job crafting as an opportunity, not a threat.
But is it an opportunity we are ready for?
Juliet Flynn, People, Culture and Inclusion team
This is a good question, and something I am not sure I can see people feeling comfortable with just yet. I read an article about job crafting in Flow magazine five years ago. The article had a checklist of questions to ask yourself:
“1. Think of three things in life that make you happy. Which of these are an integral part of your current job?
2. Can you think of ways in which you can integrate them (more) into your work?
3. Are there aspects about your current job that you dislike? What are they?
4. How could you change this (swap tasks with a colleague, spend less time on it, etc.)?”
As educators, I see such an emphasis on encouraging learners to be experimental… but when it comes to ourselves a reluctance to take risks. I understand it, but I find it so interesting that when I get an idea I interrogate more harshly than I would if someone else suggested it.
I’m glad to see job crafting is getting discussed. I think it has such potential, especially from a staff morale and staff retention point of view.
Great comments Nina, with really useful questions, thank you for sharing those. I agree – we don’t always bring that curious, experimental approach into our own working lives and I would love to see that happen more.