Providing Services During Times of Change: Can Employees Maintain Their Levels of Empowerment, Work Engagement and Service Quality Through a Job Crafting Intervention?

Abstract

By means of a quasi-experimental study, the effects of a tailor-made job crafting intervention for employees of a Dutch unemployment agency were evaluated. The intervention was designed to prevent a decrease in employee empowerment, work engagement and employee performance (i.e., the provision of services) due to organizational changes. Seventy-four employees received a 1-day training in which they set four job crafting goals for the subsequent weeks. After 6 weeks a reflection session was organized. Repeated measures ANOVA's showed that the intervention prevented a decrease in employees' feelings of empowerment. Furthermore, pre-post comparison tests showed that the control group (N = 89) experienced a significant decrease in work engagement, whereas the intervention group did not. Results showed no effect on customer-rated employee service quality. However, 1 year after the intervention, customer ratings of employee service quality were significantly higher for the intervention group compared to the control group. Although further research is needed, our results demonstrate that a job crafting intervention may be a promising tool to combat a decline in employee empowerment and work engagement during times of organizational change.

The influence of job crafting on the quality of care provided by nursing home employees: The moderating effect of organizational identification

“…Job crafting intervention could offer a competitive advantage when coping with a high demands environment with poor working conditions and in organizational change contexts led by human resources, affecting quality of care (Lundmark et al, 2020;Westerberg et al, 2018). Managers can motivate employees to craft their jobs, gearing their needs, abilities, and goals to corporate values and competencies (Hulshof et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2016).…”

Robotisering en betekenisvol werk in distributiecentra: bedreigingen en kansenDit werk maakt deel uit van het onderzoeksprogramma ‘Working with or against the machine’ met projectnummer 313-99-334, dat (mede)gefinancierd is door de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).

“…Hoewel medewerkers meer bedreigingen voor hun betekenisvol werk benoemden dan hun leidinggevenden, waren sommige medewerkers beter toegerust dan anderen om met deze veranderingen om te gaan. Dat onderlinge verschillen in het tonen van initiatief het werken met robots mogelijk betekenisvoller maakt, sluit aan op onderzoek waaruit blijkt dat proactieve medewerkers bijvoorbeeld beter in staat zijn om hun welzijn te handhaven ten tijde van organisatieveranderingen door middel van job crafting (Hulshof et al, 2020). De bevindingen dat robotisering autonomie kan beperken en weinig ruimte laat voor experimenteren, benadrukt echter dat de door de organisatie (bijv.…”

PERMA+4: A Framework for Work-Related Wellbeing, Performance and Positive Organizational Psychology 2.0

“…In each study the authors argue that contextual factors (such as the implementation of a new system, organizational restructuring or the environment) played a role in explaining why the intervention was ineffective (c.f. Demerouti et al, 2019 ; Hulshof et al, 2020 ). Critics argue that this is due to poorly defined grand theories and a lack of an overarching metaparadigm/metatheory, where unexpected results (that deviate from hypotheses) are defended rather than explored and theories updated ( Friedman and Brown, 2018 ; Hughes, 2018 ).…”