10 Takeaways from the European Conference on Positive Psychology
Setting a job crafting goal in 2023
You might have heard about a concept called job crafting. As experts, we talk about it a lot and the media are finally catching on. The pandemic gave us a flavour for personalising our jobs, we began to work with freedom and autonomy, like adapting when and where we worked. It shifted the working world on its head, opening up a huge opportunity to start crafting our job.
Job crafting is about making small, tangible and personal changes to our job to make it a better fit for us as individuals. There are 5 ways you can craft your job: skill crafting, task crafting, relationship crafting, wellbeing crafting and purpose crafting.
However, we recognise that making change is hard. New Year’s resolutions only have a 40% success rate. If setting goals and making change was easy, we would have a 100% success rate. To help you, we’re sharing a goal-setting template, created by our founder and job crafting specialist, Rob Baker.
Job crafting goal-setting template.
Rob recommends that you consider 6 different factors when developing and committing to a job crafting goal:
1) Goal - what is my job crafting goal?
Write down your goal as concise as possible. The clearer you are the better. Make your goal small so it can be achieved in under 10 minutes a day or an hour a week in total.
2) Significance - why is this goal important?
Articulate the reasons for setting a / your job crafting goal. This enables you to consider why this change matters to you, and will help tap into your internal motivations and values.
3) Trigger - what are my triggers?
Write down any triggers that are associated with your job crafting goal. These are physical or mental cues that remind you to act on your new job crafting habit.
4) Barriers - what are the potential barriers?
This requires you to reflect on your practicalities of the goal you are setting and the different hurdles which might prevent you from achieving your goal.
5) Reward - how am I going to reward myself?
Write down how you will recognise or celebrate the achievement of your goal. This can be anything you want. A cup of coffee, your favourite snack, a social media break, you choose! Each individual is different, therefore personalise your reward to something personal to yourself.
6) Accountability - who am I going to be accountable to? And how are we going to check in?
Identify an accountability buddy who you can share your goal with. This can be anyone, a colleague, a partner, your gran, whoever you like. Consider how you are going to check in with each other and this will get you to start planning and identifying opportunities to speak, which makes it more likely to happen.
Goal-setting example
Expressing gratitude to others.
Customer service manager Sue has felt a disconnect from colleagues whilst working from home and values human connection and making others feel good. She wants her team to know she values their efforts and wants to get others into the habit of giving positive feedback.
Goal: To express thanks to a colleague by email, phone or in person once a day.
Why? I value the contribution of others and recognise the importance of human connection and a team effort. It makes me feel good giving thanks to others and it makes them feel good too.
Trigger? I’ll set a reminder on my phone each day at 16:30 to remind me to send a thank you note.
Barrier? Some days there may not be clear opportunities to thank people, especially if working from home. On these days I will think of the wider benefits of my job that I appreciate.
Reward? The feel-good factor of saying thanks and the accomplishment of completing my daily target and ending the day on a positive note.
Buddy? My partner at home, I’ll tell her each night at dinner who I thanked that day.
Reminder! This goal-setting framework is not a check-list, you don’t have to complete every stage. However, evidence and research suggests the more areas you address the more likely you are to be successful in achieving your goal.
If you would like to learn more about job crafting you can read more here, or if you need some help with your goal please get in touch via email: hello@tailoredthinking.co.uk
Using job crafting to shape my career
Michelle Reid, People and Operations Director at IOM (job crafting model).
Michelle Reid, People and Operation’s Director at IOM will be sharing her experiences of job crafting and how it has helped her shape her career. Michelle has a successful history in implementing, leading, and optimising multi-level business & HR practices.
Michelle was recently listed in the HR Most Influential List 2022.
I started my role as HR Manager at IOM 5 years ago. The purpose of our organisation is to improve the health of people in their workplace and in the wider environment.
When I joined the company, what they thought they wanted wasn’t actually needed. As a result, my role now is completely different and I have used job crafting to shape it in a significant number of ways. FYI job crafting is making small, tangible changes to your job to make it more meaningful, engaging and a better fit for you as an individual.
Job crafting for me is very much aligned to my purpose. My purpose is to unlock the value of people to unleash commercial success. If there are tasks on my to-do list that don’t align with my purpose then I’ll ditch them in favour of investing my time into tasks that do.
In this blog I wanted to share with you some job crafting examples, including the 5 different ways I have crafted my job.
The 5 types of job crafting
Task crafting
At IOM, I have full responsibility for the HR function end to end, so I have to think cleverly about the tasks that I do. The way I task craft is by thinking about the tasks I enjoy doing, those I don’t enjoy doing, and how I can delegate tasks to people who may have an interest in some of my tasks (this takes the pressure off me).
A great exercise to kick start task crafting is the love and loathe exercise.
Relationship crafting
Relationship crafting is about understanding people and the relationships we have with them
When I first joined IOM the first thing I did was walk around and talk to every single person. This wasn’t with the aim of understanding what people did in their roles, but to understand how they felt about working for IOM and what they liked and disliked about the organisation. I also asked them what they would change if it was their business and what they thought was standing in their way.
This enabled me to think about where I needed to apply my skills and knowledge to help drive improvements for them. So my relationships were at the heart of that. I have become a relationship chameleon, adapting my relationships and crafting my approaches to different people and circumstances.
Purpose crafting
Purpose crafting is the one I find harder than anything else.
Subconsciously, I knew my purpose deep down. But it is only in the last 2 years that I came to this realisation and I have written it down in front of me in my diary ever since. As soon as people are connected to their purpose, the physical tasks they do, the relationships they have the skills they hold and how they feel, everything becomes aligned. They move to a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. They are not wedded by their job descriptions, titles or how they have always done things, they begin to think “why am I doing this, can this be done better, what more can I do or bring?”
Skill crafting
I find skill crafting the easiest because I’m so nosey!
I know I don’t know everything so I’m always consciously trying to learn lots of new things. So if there is something I’m curious about I just go and find it out. Google is my best friend! I’m constantly building new skills all of the time with less of a reliance on going to a course, skills are things that are crafted and learned in lots of different new ways including great conversations with others who are in the know. Skills sharing is brilliant and builds the feeling of reciprocation and value.
Wellbeing crafting
In regards to other people's wellbeing I’d say I’m great. In regards to my own… not so good.
A recent example involves an employee whose job is a combination of both physical and mental activities. Therefore they typically experience an energy dip mid-week. One of the ways they boost their energy is cycling, but they usually have to wait until the weekend to do this. I told him to take a few hours midweek to go cycling! He has now seen an increase in his energy, productivity and motivation, a no brainer for the business and for him.
Areas I want to improve in job crafting
Job crafting is something I do without thinking. However, one area I know I need to improve on is wellbeing crafting. When I’m feeling tired or drained, exercise is the first thing to go. It’s something that fills my tank, yet the thought of cardio puts me off all together. Even though I know it does wonders for my mental and physical health.
However, I have got into the routine of going to Zumba twice a week and I attend two external networking groups every Friday. Both of these activities boost my energy and productivity and make me feel good - win, win all round!
You can learn more about job crafting here, you can also connect with Michelle on LinkedIn if you would like to ask her any questions or have a chat.
The reality of job crafting as a founder
“People always think it is easy as a founder to job craft. On paper you have almost total freedom and flexibility in how you do your job. The reality, for me at least, often feels very different.”
Despite the work I do, the research I read and share, and the amazing people I get to learn from, I personally have not mastered the perfect balance at work.
Whilst I still aspire to have better work life integration, I have found job crafting as a practice is critical to me remaining buoyant, focussed and perhaps most importantly energised and excited by the work I do.
People always think it is easy as a founder to job craft. On paper you have almost total freedom and flexibility in how you do your job. The reality, for me at least (and many other founders I know), often feels very different.
As a founder or director, the opportunity to personalise your work is perhaps always available in theory, but in the midst of day-to-day working on, and in, the business it can feel hard to find the space and focus to craft your work .
Despite the challenges of finding time and energy to job craft, I do actively and deliberately find and create opportunities to iterate, improve and experiment with how I do my job.
Job crafting fundamentally helps me allocate the energy and focus to the areas of (my messy) work and life that need it and matter to me.
How I job craft
Building on the (fabulous) blogs from Chloe, Charlotte and Carly, here are some small ways that I apply job crafting to my job and practice what I preach when it comes to shaping how we act, interact and think about our work.
Task crafting
I regularly try to tinker and change how I do tasks and allocate my time. A recent task crafting experiment - inspired by Charlotte - was to dictate rather than write elements of this blog. And whilst I’ve found this awkward and clumsy it’s also been freeing and fun to approach a specific task in a new and novel way. This experiment has encouraged me to think about other ways I might find for dictation and it is definitely something I’m committing to exploring further.
Skill crafting
I feel fortunate that I feel I am constantly learning in my role (although at times I crave a bit of stability); there are always new ideas to explore, people to learn from and skills and knowledge to develop.
From a work perspective I always strive to have at least one work project that stretches me and the team to learn and try new things or new approaches to existing issues.
As we look to develop the Job Canvas, a way that I am deliberately learning is my knowledge around the world of SAAS (software as a service) and how to build and market new products. I’m listening to lots of podcasts, speaking to people in the industry and reading lots of blogs.
Relationship crafting
Relationships inside and outside of Tailored Thinking are core and fundamental to everything that we do. We work with, and for, people.
I try not to take any relationship for granted and find ways to shape, improve and amplify the connections I have with others.
Aside from colleagues and clients, I actively create and make time to informally connect and speak with people who are doing interesting things related to making work better to share and spark ideas, offer help and support, collaborate and / or just chat.
I try to pencil these types of meeting in on a quarterly recurring basis which means that we are not scratching around at the last minute to find time in our diaries (I hate diary management), that we forget to reconnect when we are busy doing other things.
They’re informal, unstructured and are always positive. I often come away from them feeling energised and excited – this might be about something they are doing - or having discussed and explored a new idea.
Purpose crafting
I’m always surprised by the power of cognitive or purpose crafting. Simply changing how we think about a work activity can fundamentally shape how we engage with it. Remembering why you are doing something, and why it matters to you, can be instrumental in pushing forward with an activity when motivation or inspiration is in scant supply.
Along with diary management, another area of work that I never look forward to or enjoy relates to doing expenses and reviewing the finances of the business. Last year I started to think about how I could look at, and approach these tasks differently.
I started to think of finance tasks as ‘work weeds’ related to the general gardening required of growing a business. I recognised that most gardeners don’t look forward to weeding but they know it is a key and important part of having a thriving and blooming garden.
So now, when it comes to doing my expenses and finances I think about this as a way of showing care and compassion for the business rather than a transactional activity.
If I’m honest, this change in my mindset isn’t enough to spark joy and excitement when I log into Quickbooks or download the latest financial report, but it has shifted how I view these activities and I find myself dealing with them more regularly and thoroughly rather than simply putting them off.
Being diligent about my finances is a way of caring and being considerate for the business and is ultimately in the service of the team, our clients and partners, and the people we support.
Wellbeing crafting
I find watching films and TV a real escape but I often struggle to create the time to do this. Whilst I used to think it was sacrilege to not watch films and TV programmes in one sitting, I’ve started to ‘snack’ on films during my lunch break.
It feels really indulgent (I need to get out more) to watch a 15 or 20 minutes of film or TV programme whilst I am eating my lunch and it enables me to completely switch off. In the past couple of months I’ve made my way through a rewatch of Point Break (still a classic) and the first season of Severed (brilliant and mind-bending).
Another way I have wellbeing crafted relates to giving myself permission to run during ‘office hours’ as I know categorically and unequivocally that I will be a better worker, thinker, collaborator, husband and dad after I have exercised.
Job crafting failures
Whilst I’ve shared some ideas of how I have successfully job crafted, it’s important to recognise that job crafting is an experiment, and that experiments don’t always work. Some notable failures I’ve had when it comes to job crafting include:
Keeping Fridays free from meetings (I found that I for lots of practical reasons struggled to keep this day completely free)
Resolving never doing work in the evenings or at weekends (I found this absolute approach unworkable and ultimately increased my levels of anxiety - I now have looser boundaries)
Having check-in meetings with colleagues first thing in the morning before I do anything else (I find that to give the team my full attention it is more helpful for me to have settled in for 30 minutes or so by planning my day and scanning emails and messages)
Going to the gym at lunch (I struggled to commit the time to do this - I still aspire to do this but need to approach this in a different way – any advice welcome).
Finding the light
When it comes to my personal job crafting, I don’t do anything different from what we advocate to others. Starting small, with curiosity and commitment is all you need.
Making a small change to how I do my work can make me feel more in control of my day.
As founder, when you feel overwhelmed or overstretched it’s often hard to see a way through. And for me job crafting is like the smallest chink of light coming through in an otherwise blacked out room. It allows me to reorientate and refocus on the things that matter to me and hopefully allows us a team to do the work that matters to others.
The author of this blog, Rob Baker is founder and Chief Positive Deviant at Tailored Thinking. Rob is a chartered fellow of both the CIPD and the Australian HR Institute and has a first class Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. He is passionate about making work better and making better work.
Job Crafting: How I’ve made my job more me
Charlotte’s job crafting model
“Four months into my role I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I have already personalised my job. ”
I began my journey at Tailored Thinking as a Lead People Scientist. Having realised I’d (unknowingly) crafted every job I’ve ever had, I was keen to understand how I could be more deliberate with it.
(Job crafting is making small and tangible changes to your job to make it a better fit for you).
Sharing my experiences
Four months into my role I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I have already personalised my job. Much of this is due to the freedom and autonomy Tailored Thinking encourages and enables (how could we not?)
Similar to Chloe (my fellow team member), I grouped my experience against the 5 main ways that we find people tend to job craft.
Five ways I’ve crafted my job:
1. Purpose crafting
Charlotte working on the flipchart
What is it? Purpose crafting is reframing how we think about our work in general, including the value and significance it brings to us personally and others.
How did I do it? Hearing stories from people who have made seemingly small and simple changes to their roles, but have seen huge impacts from it, reminds me of the power of job crafting and its potential to genuinely improve working lives. Speaking to people about their job crafting experiences is my go-to if I'm ever wondering how my role adds value to people’s working lives."
2. Task crafting
Notes
What is it? Task crafting is tangibly changing aspects of how we undertake our work including designing, adding or removing tasks.
How did I do it? People who know me well would describe me as super organised, and someone who makes plans happen. Naturally, I quickly adopted this role within the Tailored Thinking team. Those admin tasks that no-one ‘owns’ but someone needs to? That’s me! I’ve loved managing Trello boards, keeping projects on track, and writing proposals. We all have different strengths and interests and I look forward to taking on more responsibility for the finance and data sides of Tailored Thinking (you’re welcome Chloe!) as my role develops.
3. Skill crafting
Yes sign
What is it? Skill crafting is developing, refining and focusing on new skills.
How did I do it? I’m a believer in saying yes to the stuff that scares me - whether that be figuring out the technicalities of delivering large group facilitation online, or getting more comfortable speaking in public. I don’t always say yes immediately, but I know how much I have developed during my career through stretching myself, and trust that that will continue when I embrace opportunities to be vulnerable.
I’ve recently been delivering presentations on new topics and have just recorded a podcast, which I’m pretty proud of.
4. Wellbeing crafting
Charlotte’s Google calendar (not available)
What is it? Wellbeing crafting is boosting our physical and mental health through the work we do.
How did I do it? This is the area I’ve probably done most crafting. For example, most days I block out time for lunch to allow a proper break and eat proper food (not just the beige stuff). I always set an out of office for when I’m not working, which takes away any pressure to be working / responding, and also automatically declines invitations in my calendar - saving me the job of saying no to people. As a 4-day week employer, I also dedicate my non-working day to self-care (you can read more about that here).
5. Relationship crafting
Chloe and Charlotte chatting
What is it? Relationship crafting is shaping how we relate and engage with others, including building and adapting our relationship with co-workers.
How did I do it? I think it’s really important to allow time for getting to know colleagues, especially in a remote world (but more generally too). Since joining the team I’ve actively tried to make time to collaborate with colleagues, as well as allowing space at the beginning of meetings for chit chat. Some days, connecting with lots of people can be energy depleting, so I try to keep one day a week meeting free. This allows me to indulge my introvert side, and also serves as uninterrupted focus time for larger pieces of work.
If you want to start crafting your job my advice would be:
Select an area of job crafting to focus on (1 of the 5 described above).
Think about parts of your role that you would like to start doing, stop doing or change. It doesn’t have to be additional work but doing more of the stuff you like or reframing how you approach parts of your role.
Treat it as an experiment - it’s OK if it doesn’t go how you expected the first time (we often see unintended benefits too).
Start small - it doesn’t have to be massive, just something that will improve your job by just 1% and can take less than 1 hour per week.
Charlotte is the lead people scientist at Tailored Thinking and is passionate about making work better for everyone. Charlotte has a first class masters degree in Occupational Psychology and enjoys understanding what meaningful work looks like and feels like for different people.
The Origin Story: The Job Canvas
Origin stories seem all the rage at the moment. It feels like every other film at the cinema or TV box set is focussed on telling the story of where a character came from.
Jumping on Hollywood’s bandwagon, in this blog I wanted to share the Job Canvas origin story (I can’t promise it will be as exciting as the origin of “One” in Stranger Things or how Han Solo found the Millenium Falcon in Solo).
I’d like to say that the idea for the Job Canvas came like a bolt from blue, but the truth is, as an idea and then as a product it has been developing and evolving over a number of years. It emerged from thinking, testing and doing rather than as a fully formed product.
I sent the first email about the Job Canvas to someone in 2017 and gmail tells me that I have sent over 893 emails about the Canvas since this date (I write this in July 2022).
The starting point - the problem I wanted to solve
As I’ve written before as an HR professional, despite writing and reviewing 100’s of job descriptions, I have never been a fan. They have the potential to box people into fixed ways of working, are inflexible, often frustrating to produce, and out of date as soon as they are written.
The consequence of all this is that people seldom rely on or derive value from their job descriptions; they are often documents that are hidden away on a hard drive gaining digital dust only brought out for promotions, disciplinaries or the dreaded annual review.
Rather than providing clarity, job descriptions often blur the lines. They don’t capture the essence or reality of how a job is undertaken.
When I was doing research for my book (Personalisation at Work - available at all good and evil book stores) I started to realise that - perhaps unintentionally - job descriptions could be a significant barrier to people personalising their work.
Daydreaming about solutions to this problem, I began to get curious about what a more flexible, agile, personal and frankly more human way of describing and capturing and defining a job would look like.
From digital dust to digital canvas
When I was setting up Tailored Thinking I had been introduced to the idea of using canvases to capture and map out different parts of the business. These canvases were often split into different segments or elements that mapped out the different, but often interrelated aspects of a function. For example, the Business Model Canvas (probably the most well known and used canvas amongst start ups) maps out different elements of core business model.
Taking inspiration from the canvases I was using for the business, combined with other research and themes I was exploring from design thinking, I started to explore what a “Job Canvas” would look like.
Following testing with colleagues, friends, clients and other interested organisations, I developed 9 core elements of the Canvas that gave insights to different elements of the role and got to the heart or the DNA of a job.
I remember feeling really excited when I explored the canvas with the HR team at a challenger bank close to me and they were able to get a really good outline of the job in 18 minutes (2 minutes per section).
Creating a digital canvas
At first the Canvas was just a powerpoint template that I printed out and tested with individuals and teams.
Once I was happy with the 9 core elements of the Job Canvas, I started to consider addressing some of the other challenges with job descriptions. For example, they’re not always easy to update, they get lost, and the data in job descriptions aren’t centralised.
Looking back at my notes on the creation of the digital Canvas I wanted it to be:
Easy to access and update
Saved so that people didn’t have to re-complete it
Downloadable into a PDF
Centrally stored for managers and HR colleagues so that the documents didn’t get lost
Analysable to support broader organisational and people analytic insights
Having got some ideas of what I wanted, I was introduced to a patient, curious and amazing software developer (thanks Nick) who turned my thoughts into the first version of the digital job canvas that is now free to use.
Some unexpected results…
One of the joys of seeing individuals and teams use the Job Canvas is that you can see them gaining different insights and reflections.
Working with one HR team in the early stages, a team leader shared that the Job Canvas exercise allowed her to put her finger on an issue that she had been struggling to resolve.
One of the moments about the Canvas was that people doing the same role might view their roles differently. E.G. someone working in HR might see their key customers as employees or others might see their key customers as the organisation and the leaders. Now both perceptions are valid, but this might explain the behaviours in the team.
For example, one person might spend a lot of time sorting out individual issues with employees and advocacy whilst others might spend less time doing this - might be perceived as less accessible - and spend more time looking at strategic issues.
As a line manager, this enables you to have better conversations with staff and understand whether there are any conflicts or friction with how that person sees that job and requirements for that job.
Future thinking…
Building on the ideas of our current users and becoming more immersed in digital HR products, we see lots of opportunities to develop the canvas further and include greater features.
We’ve already started holding meetings with interested teams and prospective clients to explore how we could improve the Job Canvas and what they would like us to add into future iterations of the product.
If you would like to be involved and share any insights or feedback then please let us know at hello@tailoredthinking.co.uk.
I’d like to thank the following people who have helped shape the early developments in the Job Canvas.
Satalia, Virgin Money, Anne-Marie Lister, Sarah Dewar, Lisa Davidson, Sara Cox, Melanie Cheung, Michelle Reid, Michelle Minnikin and many more (give me a nudge if I’ve missed you off).
The author of this blog, Rob Baker is founder and Chief Positive Deviant at Tailored Thinking. Rob is a chartered fellow of both the CIPD and the Australian HR Institute and has a first class Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. He is passionate about making work better and making better work.
3 improvements for the world of work by 2030 as a GEN Z
The workplace has changed drastically over the past few years due to the issues brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, the flexibility of the workplace has evolved at a rapid pace. As we adjust to the new normal, people are becoming more selective about their careers and how they can better suit their needs.
As someone who will be entering the world of work within the next 5 years, I believe there is a lot room for development. Below are my top 3 improvements I hope to see by 2030.
Looking at skills and strengths rather than careers set in stone
Strengths and skills.
Instead of focusing on what job you want when you’re older, I believe considering your strengths, skills and values first. I’m currently in year 10 and being asked A LOT about my future career and how higher education can get me there. However, I’m unsure. The constant focus on picking a specific career path or job makes it difficult for people like me who haven’t got any set career plans yet.
My suggestion is to focus on the individuals strengths, skills and values. This can give people a foundation to build on and the opportunity to craft their careers. Rather than focusing on selecting a career first and limiting our options and potential.
2. D&I: Celebrating people’s differences at work
Diversity and Inclusion.
Neurodiversity is in the spotlight now more than ever before. Many people are plucking up the courage to speak out about their struggles. However, what are workplaces doing to support this? With many more people becoming diagnosed with ADHD and autism, it’s time for employers to consider how they can enable everyone to flourish.
My suggestion for this is once again flexibility. Flexibility in the when, where and how we work, like schedules and timing. Accepting everyone to be themselves and not having to mask or alter their behaviour at work to feel secure in their jobs.
3. Making the world of work greener
A greener world of work.
Making the workplace more environmentally friendly is becoming increasingly important as global warming is becoming a significant issue. A recent study uncovered that 73% of Gen Z respondents feel it’s up to businesses to make a better, greener world.
In order to attract and retain Gen Z, it’s essential that businesses consider the environment. I think employees are more likely to feel valued and proud to work for an organisation that is being actively kinder to our planet. They’re also more likely to be engaged, motivated and happy in their jobs.
My suggestion is for companies to be tracking their carbon footprint, recycling and other activities which show the business is actively tackling this issue.
Although there have been great improvements to the world of work over the last few years, we still have a long way to go. I aspire for a brighter, more inclusive and greener environment at work. Enabling people to feel confident and secure entering the world of work.
Darcy Snell is the incredible author of this blog! Just 14 years old, Darcy is completing her work experience with Tailored Thinking and has done a FAB job. Darcy is very creative and enjoys going to the theatre or the cinema. She hopes to study something involved with human behaviour, like criminology or psychology.
