What is Job Crafting and Why Does It Matter?

Learning Goal: I’m working on a management writing question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.Assignment Aim: To put theory into practice
by experimenting with the concept and tools around job crafting for
yourself so that you can use them with individuals and groups in the
future.As we explore the concept of Job Crafting this week, the best way to learn about it is to try it for yourself!Specifically, you need to:
Step 1: Complete The Job Crafting Questionnaire (JCQ)
Download Job Crafting Questionnaire (JCQ)
which has been developed to assess how much we
engage in the three different behaviors at work: task, relationship, and
cognitive crafting. This comes from: Slemp, Gavin & Vella-Brodrick,
Dianne. (2013). The job crafting questionnaire: A new scale to measure
the extent to which employees engage in job crafting. International
Journal of Wellbeing. 3.
Step 2: Using insights from your JCQ results as a self
reflection tool, you will create what’s known as a “Before Sketch”. This
helps you understand how you’re allocating and spending your time
across various tasks. Think here in terms of energy, and broadly about
resources and demands.
Step 3: The next step is grouping your whole job into
three types of Task Blocks. The biggest of these blocks are for tasks
which consume the most of your effort, attention, and time; the smallest
blocks are for the least energy-, attention-, and time-intensive tasks,
and some will fall into the middle, ‘medium-sized’ blocks.
Step 4: With this knowledge of how your personal
resources get allocated, you now craft an “After Diagram” of what your
ideal role will look like. Of course, you aren’t stepping completely
outside of what you’re formally required to do, but do use your
strengths, passions, and motives to create something more meaningful.
And in doing so, we use the same idea of task blocks—of course, this
time with different priorities.
Step 5: Now you have an “After Diagram”, and you can
‘frame’ different task groups—Role Frames, which you see as serving
different functions. Here, you’re crafting your perceptions, so you can
label different tasks in reimagined ways: rather like our
chef-turned-food artisan above.
Step 6: The last step is where you create an Action
Plan to set out clear goals for the short- and long-term. How are you
going to move from your Before Diagram (current job) to your After
Diagram (ideal job)?
Your deliverable for this assignment is:A 4 – 5 page reflective memo that includes a summary of:The headline results of your JPQ.
Your “Before sketch” of your current job(Staffing Coordinator at Amazon)
Your “After Diagram” of what your ideal role will look
like, that also includes your ‘frame’ for different task groups— what
are your reframed perceptions and labels for different tasks in
reimagined ways (like the chef-turned-food artisan example).
A high-level action plan that details goals for how you
might move from your “Before Diagram” (current job) to your “After
Diagram” (ideal job)?
Note: The original job crafting exercise was developed by Berg, J.M., Dutton, J.E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2007). What is Job Crafting and Why Does It Matter?. Retrieved from positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu (Links to an external site.). This assignment is a version of that exercise as summarized by Catherine Moore in her article: What is Job Crafting (Links to an external site.).
You may be interested in exploring for yourself or with
clients and organizations the paid version of this tool, which is
available at: positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu (Links to an external site.).
Requirements: 4-5 pages