The value of job crafting for work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction: longitudinal and quasi-experimental evidence

Abstract

We examine how job crafting (i.e. seeking resources, seeking challenges, decreasing demands) increases the person-job fit of employees. In Study 1, we studied job crafting's effects over time. 111 employees filled out a questionnaire at two time points with 6 months in between. We found that seeking resources behavior at Time 1 positively affected work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction at Time 2. Decreasing demands at Time 1 negatively affected work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction at Time 2. In Study 2, we tested a job crafting intervention using a quasi-experimental design (i.e., intervention group, N = 60, and a control group, N = 59). The intervention was successful, as participants in the intervention group increased seeking resources and decreasing demands behaviors. Furthermore, seeking resources behavior was the main driver of increased participants' work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction.

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

“…Overall, our results are in line with and complementary to other studies regarding the job crafting intervention (e.g., Van den Heuvel et al, 2015;Demerouti et al, 2017;Gordon et al, 2018;Dubbelt et al, 2019) as it has shown to have an effect on employee well-being (i.e., empowerment and work engagement) as well as on service quality. Since the effects of the intervention on job crafting behavior were rather weak, the question that arises is how the intervention improved the outcomes.…”

“…For example, Van den Heuvel et al (2015) showed that a job crafting intervention is a promising means to enhance personal resources (i.e., selfefficacy) and well-being for police officers. Moreover, Gordon et al (2018) showed that a job crafting intervention enhances employee performance in healthcare, whereas Dubbelt et al (2019) showed that a job crafting intervention, executed in an educational setting, was able to enhance employee work engagement. Lastly, Demerouti et al (2017) showed that the intervention was effective to increase positive affect and openness to change among municipality employees during organizational change due to austerity.…”

“…The design of the workshop was in line with recent job crafting interventions (e.g., Gordon et al, 2018;Dubbelt et al, 2019) and was tailored to meet the needs of the unemployment agency. The focus of the unemployment agency is on providing high quality services to their unemployed customers.…”

Work engagement and task performance within a global Dutch ICT-consulting firm: The mediating role of innovative work behaviors

“…This ICT organization could explore active means through which to enhance work engagement in order to aid employees to be more innovative and to perform better. We know from past research that increasing resources fuels work engagement, which can be accomplished, for example, via job crafting (Dubbelt et al 2019). Job crafting is a bottom-up work design strategy in which employees shape their own work environment such that it fits their individual needs by adjusting the prevailing job demands and resources (Tims and Bakker 2010).…”

“…Job crafting is a bottom-up work design strategy in which employees shape their own work environment such that it fits their individual needs by adjusting the prevailing job demands and resources (Tims and Bakker 2010). ICT organizations can create the conditions to facilitate job crafting behaviors, for example, by offering job crafting training (see Dubbelt et al, 2019). Furthermore, supervisors could actively engage in providing necessary feedback, or to become coaches to employees, such that employees are supported and become motivated to develop and grow in their jobs (Anwar and Niode 2017;Demerouti 2014).…”