Craft Your Career - The Art of Shaping Your Job for Maximum Fulfillment

“I’m still working hard,” she tells a friend. “But I’m stuck. Every week, I feel less and less motivated. I’m beginning to wonder why I wanted this position in the first place.” If you’re in this situation, and changing roles or companies is unrealistic given the tough economy, what can you do??Maybe the answer lies with Job Crafting. “To win support for your job crafting, focus on creating value for others, building trust, and identifying the people who will accommodate you.”

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Let’s start with the story of Arzoo - A 37-year-old midlevel manager who is struggling at work. A star member of her team in the sales division of a multinational cosmetic company, Arzoo consistently hits her benchmarks and goals. She invests long hours and has built relationships with colleagues that she deeply values. And her senior managers think of her as one of the company’s high potential.?

When an employee is identified as having a high potential, it is not necessary that they are passionate and fully driven about the work they do.? Many times, even a high potential might be on the verge of quitting. Quiet Quitting refers to doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary. According to the Gallup report "Quiet quitters" makeup at least 50% of the U.S. workforce.?

This is a problem because most jobs today require some level of extra effort to collaborate with coworkers and meet customer needs. The drop in engagement was experienced more by Managers. The overall decline was especially related to the clarity of expectations, opportunities to learn and grow, feeling cared about, and a connection to the organization's mission or purpose -- signaling a growing disconnect between employees and their employers. Nearly 40% of internal job moves involving high potentials end in failure. If you want to keep your rising stars on the track,

1. Don’t just assume they’re engaged- If emerging leaders don’t get stimulating work, lots of recognition, and the chance to prosper, they can quickly become disenchanted.?
2. Don't mistake current high performance for future potential- Stars will have to step up into tougher roles. Explicitly test candidates for three critical attributes: ability, engagement, and aspiration.?
3. Don’t delegate talent development to line managers- That only limits stars’ access to opportunities and encourages hoarding of talent. Manage the quantity and quality of high potentials at the corporate level.?
4. Don’t shield talent- Place stars in “live fire” roles where new capabilities can—or must—be acquired.?
5. Don’t assume high potentials will take one for the team- A critical factor determining a rising star’s engagement is the sense that she is being recognized—primarily through pay. So offer A players differentiated compensation and recognition.??
6. Don’t keep young leaders in the dark- Share future strategies with them—and emphasize their role in making them real

Let’s get back to Arzoo. Outside the office, Arzoo would admit that she feels stagnant in her job, trapped by the tension between day-to-day demands and what she wants to be doing: exploring how the company can use social media in increasing sales. Twitter, her cause-sales blog, and mobile gadgets are her main passions. She’d like to look for another job, but with the ongoing recession, sticking it out seems like her best (and perhaps only) option.?

“I’m still working hard,” she tells a friend. “But I’m stuck. Every week, I feel less and less motivated. I’m beginning to wonder why I wanted this position in the first place.” If you’re in this situation, and changing roles or companies is unrealistic given the tough economy, what can you do??

Professor at Yale School of Management Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski has devoted her professional life to studying how people relate to their jobs. Her three distinct, defined work contexts—job, career, and calling—are as follows:

1. Job: You can be paid, receive benefits, and possibly enjoy some social pleasures with a job. The main goal is to get that paycheck. These individuals tend to be more involved in their life outside of work. Simply said, work is how they are able to support their passions. Instead of concentrating on their careers, they are more concerned with their family, friends, and hobbies.?
2. Career: A job is something you do for other people, whereas a career is something you do for yourself. Let's face it, everyone works for a paycheck, but career professionals are more motivated to look for prospects for progress at work. These people frequently endeavor to impress, look for the next promotion, and seek out additional training. People who are career-oriented frequently create objectives, have a long-term perspective on their professional future, and enjoy friendly competition with coworkers.
3. Calling: The likelihood of feeling a strong congruence between one's career and their personal identity is highest for those who see their employment as a calling. Their emotional and personal connection to their work is strong. They are enthused, have a sense of purpose, and are prepared to put in more effort and stay later to contribute. Unsurprisingly, this group frequently expresses the highest levels of satisfaction with their work environment.

Going back to our friend Arzoo, it is fair to say that she is currently pursuing a career, and if she or her employer can shift it to become a calling, the results will be greater.

A growing body of research suggests that an exercise called “job crafting” can be a powerful tool for reenergizing and reimagining your work life. It involves redefining your job to incorporate your motives, strengths, and passions. Job crafting is an employee-initiated approach that enables employees to shape their work environment such that it fits their individual needs by adjusting the prevailing job demands and resources. It is about taking proactive steps and actions to redesign what we do at work, essentially changing tasks, relationships, and perceptions of our jobs.?

The main premise is that we can stay in the same role, getting more meaning out of our jobs simply by changing what we do and the ‘whole point’ behind it. It has been linked to better performance, intrinsic motivation, and employee engagement. The exercise prompts you to visualize the job, map its elements, and reorganize them to better suit you. In this way, you can put personal touches on how you see and do your job, and you’ll gain a greater sense of control at work—which is especially critical at a time when you’re probably working longer and harder and expecting to retire later. Perhaps job crafting’s best feature is that it’s driven by you, not your supervisor.

There are various types of job crafting -

• Task Crafting which initiates Changing the responsibility
• Relationship Crafting initiating Changing up interactions,?
• Cognitive Crafting: Changing up your mindset?

One must be wondering how Job Designing is different from Job Crafting, well there are indeed similarities between the two as job design involves the systematic organization of work-related processes, functions, and tasks, however, in most cases, job design is seen as a ‘top-down’ organizational approach in which the worker is mostly passive. In contrast, job crafting puts the responsibility for change in employees’ hands. Workers are proactive and the approach is first and foremost about enhancing their well-being.

As the world stumbles toward a post-pandemic recession, employee departures, massive layoffs, and even quiet quitting are on the rise. For instance, one study estimates that 55% of people in the workforce in August 2021 intend to look for a new job in the next 12 months. It was reported by The Hindu that organizations like Infosys aim to pay out 65% of the variable pay to employees for the July-September quarter, compared with 70% in the April-June quarter, because of ‘pressure on margins’.?

To counteract the incoming wave of employee turnover, organizations — more than ever — need to focus on cultivating employee engagement. The evidence is clear. Engaged employees perform better, experience less burnout, and stay in organizations longer. The organization and the employee need to co-own the job crafting journey of the employee. This is the most efficient way of building a culture of high performance.?

In our work at IgnitedNeurons , we help organizations develop their people and help them achieve high performance in all aspects of their lives - personal and professional. Reach out and would love to cocreate something impactful!

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