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Continuous and autonomous Job Crafting support in the home-work environment
J.J. Laenen
TU/e
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
Job crafting can be a useful tool to improve one’s job. And
although different interventions have been developed to
support employees in their job crafting process, they have
limitations regarding their suitability for continuous and
autonomous job crafting in the home environment. This
study aims at creating a process which facilitates continuous
and autonomous job crafting in the home environment. An
application called the Job Crafting Journey was tested for
two weeks with 10 participants. All participants were
interviewed three times about their experiences. The results
provide several factors which can contribute to autonomous
and continuous job crafting support. From here, a new
continuous action-reflection job crafting process is proposed,
which can be implemented in digital job crafting
applications.
Author Keywords
Job Crafting Support; JD-R; work-home balance; digital job
support;
ACM Classification Keywords
H.4.m. Information systems applications: miscellaneous
H.5.2 Information interfaces: User Interfaces; H.5.m.
Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI):
Miscellaneous;
INTRODUCTION
Job crafting (Wrzesniewski, & Dutton, 2001) is the activity
by which an employee designs the activities within one’s job.
This has been recognized as a way for employees to optimize
their job to fit their personal profile. Furthermore, it is an
effective way to increase work engagement (Tims, Bakker &
Derks, 2013). However, job crafting is traditionally an
activity which is intrinsically performed by already
motivated employees and students. Therefore, a relevant
challenge is to see if people can be supported in their job
crafting process (Tims, Bakker & Derks, 2015), and if so,
how this should be done.
Several interventions have been designed to support job
crafting. Two important examples are the Job Crafting
Exercise by Berg, Dutton and Wrzesniewski (2013), and the
the Job Crafting Intervention by Van den Heuvel, Demerouti,
and Peeters (2015).
The job crafting exercise typically consists of one workshop.
During such a workshop, based on theoretical background
information, real-life examples, and group discussions,
participants are invited to formulate their own job crafting
plan. The Job Crafting Intervention (Van den Heuvel et al.,
2015). extends a workshop with a four-week job crafting
period, where the job crafting plans are put into practice.
Afterwards, a reflection session is hosted, where participants
discuss the outcomes, and what the implications are for their
job.
While current job crafting interventions produce positive
effects on the job crafting intentions of participants
(Wingerden, Bakker & Derks, 2017; Kooij, van Woerkom,
Wilkenloh, Dorenbosch & Denissen, 2017), they have
several limitations as well.
Firstly, since the support provided by these job crafting
interventions is workshop-based, the employees’ flexibility
within the process is limited. In this scenario, getting started
with job crafting support is dependent on when a workshop
is hosted.
A practical disadvantage of group workshops with a fixed
structure, is that it becomes hard to tailor the job crafting
experience to the individual’s needs. During the period of
executing the job crafting plan, support is limited to
reminders, and the job crafting plan takes four weeks,
regardless of the content of an individual’s job crafting goals.
Thirdly, workshops can only be hosted with a limited number
of participants. This makes it harder to facilitate job crafting
support at scale compared to e.g. a readily available tool.
Fourthly, the home environment is partially accounted for in
the current interventions. However, I propose that emphasis
on the relation of the job environment to the home
environment is increasingly important while facilitating job
crafting support, due to an increased trend in working from
home (Jarrar & Zairi, 2002; Ouye, 2011). Research shows
this can result in increased productivity (Bloom, Liang,
Roberts & Ying, 2015).
However, this trend could also blur the line between the
home context and the job context. Demands and resources
from the home environment traditionally already influence
the demands and resources from the work environment and
vice versa (Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012). However, if the
physical environments of work and home become the same,
these relationships could increase even more. Within this
context, the first two limitations become even more
prominent, since physical group workshops are impossible to
organize at home, and human support becomes harder
outside of the office environment.
During the time of writing this paper, these issues are
especially relevant. We’re undergoing a societal change due
to the COVID-19 outbreak (Novel, 2020). This is, possibly
permanently, accelerating this home-working trend, since
employees are forced to work from home while in quarantine
(Politico magazine, 2020).
Considering the opportunities of working from home, and
the limitations of current job crafting interventions, the aim
of this study is to explore how employees can be supported
in their job crafting process, without the need for human
intervention, and while retaining full autonomy within this
process. From this, the research question is as follows:
How can a job crafting application facilitate continuous and
autonomous job crafting behavior for employees working
from home?
RELATED WORK
To measure job-crafting behavior, this study looks at job
crafting from the job demand-resources (JD-R) perspective
(Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2001). This
section provides theoretical knowledge regarding JD-R, and
its benefits within job crafting. Additionally, information is
provided about the relationship between home and work
environment. Lastly, the job crafting intervention will be
explained in more detail.
Job demand-resources
The job demand-resources model (JD-R) (Demerouti et al.,
2001) is an effective model to measure work engagement and
burnout (Schaufeli, 2017). Essentially, this model aims to
create an overview of one’s job demands and resources to
relate these to employee’s motivation and strains, and from
there find factors which influence burn-out and work
engagement (Demerouti & Bakker, 2004).
Figure 1: Bakker, Schaufeli, Demerouti and Euwema
(2007), The JD-R model
Figure 1 shows the relations between job demands (e.g.
physical and emotional demands), and job resources (e.g.
autonomy and support), and how these influence
performance.
Job crafting
The activity of Job Crafting has been an ongoing research
subject in the past years. In general, two perspectives on Job
crafting have been studied. The first perspective by
Wrzesniewski, and Dutton (2001) describes that employees
can either influence the number of tasks and how they
perform them, the number and intensity of interactions, and
the meaning of their job (Wrzesniewski, and Dutton, 2001,
as cited in Tims et al., 2015).
The Job Crafting exercise by Berg, Dutton, Wrzesniewski,
and Baker (2013) uses this theory as the base for their
intervention. It typically consists of one workshop, which
follows a define → illustrate → do structure. First, the
concept of job crafting is explained. Afterwards, the concept
is illustrated with various examples. Finally, participants are
invited to set goals based on the theory and examples. At the
beginning of the workshop, the principles of job design and
job crafting are explained, where they conclude that the
actual job is a combination of the formal job design, and job
crafting. Afterwards, real-life examples are explained, after
which a group discussion is organized. Finally, participants
are invited to formulate their own Job Crafting Plan.
The second perspective is the JD-R perspective. By using
JD-R, job crafting can be generalized into the demands and
resources characteristics, which makes it easier to apply it
more widely (Tims et al., 2015).
The job crafting intervention as described by Van den
Heuvel et al. (2015) and by Demerouti (2014) uses this
model as the base for their intervention. The intervention
works differently than the exercise. Aside from the
difference in theoretical background, the most notable
difference is that the intervention takes multiple weeks,
while the exercise consists of one workshop. The
intervention consists of an exercise where participants learn
the principals of JD-R and job crafting. Here, participants list
their tasks, demands and resources, which are reflected upon
within the group. Based on this, participants create a personal
crafting plan (PCP). Here, they describe their personal goals
to influence their job demands and resources. During a
period of four weeks they keep a crafting logbook. After
these four weeks, a reflection session is hosted where
participants discuss the outcomes. Since this study aims at
creating a widely usable job crafting application, the JD-R
perspective is chosen.
Wingerden et al. (2017) tested the effects of a slight variation
on the job crafting intervention by Van den Heuvel et al. (2015) for
one year. In this example, 75 teachers performed the job
crafting intervention. Before the intervention job crafting
behavior was measured. This was repeated nine weeks, and
one year after the intervention. The results showed a positive
long-term influence on job crafting behavior, and an increase
in overall job performance and opportunities.
Work-home relationships
To effectively create an intervention which supports the
home-work environment, we can look at the theoretical
relations between the home environment and the job
environment.
The relation between home-work interference (HWI) and
work-home interference (WHI) has been studied from the
perspective of Job demands and Home demands by Peeters,
Montgomery, Bakker and Schaufeli (2005). Here, HWI and
WHI are described as the interference which the home
demands have on the work situation and vice versa.
This is visualized by Brummelhuis and Bakker (2012) in the
Work-Home resources model (figure 2). This model
visualizes the relation between job demands and resources,
and home demands and resources, by introducing the
personal resources. These personal resources are influenced
by the work and home contexts. For instance, a nice job
positively influences one’s mood, which consequently
positively influences the home atmosphere.
Figure 2: Brummelhuis and Bakker (2012), The work-
home resources model
Remote working
There are several effects contributing to the increase in work
from home, as described by Felstead & Henseke (2017).
They found that two-third of the increase in remote working
was little influenced by contextual changes. Although factors
like a decrease in physical work play a role, this role is
relatively small. They conclude that two-third of the increase
in work from home is part of a trend rather than a logical
consequence of a changing context. Although this trend was
already mentioned by Jarrar & Zairi (2002) and Ouye (2011),
Festead & Henseke (2017) provides a more in-depth analysis
on the influencing factors behind the trend.
Effects of working from home on the employee’s satisfaction
have also been researched by Festead & Henske (2017). The
conclude that although employee satisfaction increased
while working from home, it became harder to divide work
and private life. The effects on employee effectiveness have
been researched by Bloom, Liang, Roberts & Ying (2015).
They compared office work with home work for call center
employees, at a travel agency with 16.000 employees.
Results showed an increase in work satisfaction and working
hours, and a decrease in turnover-rate. These papers show the
positive effects of work from home, while also highlighting
a potential risk, which is the spillover between work and
private life. Here, the risk exists that employees perform, or
are disrupted by personal activities during work hours, and
work activities during personal hours.
Self-reflection & motivation
Reflection is an important part of job crafting. When
employees are committed to executing their job-crafting
plan, they should be aware of their personal goals, and how
the execution of these goals impacts their job crafting
process. Because the home environment limits the amount of
personal support, there should be proper guidance in other
ways.
This can be achieved by means of self-reflection. The
process of self-reflection is visualized by Grant (2003). He
describes “goal-directed self-regulation”. Here, a person sets
a goal, after which (s)he develops an action plan. Afterwards,
this plan is executed. During and after the executing, the plan
is monitored through self-reflection. Based on this, the
results are evaluated, after which can be defined what went
well, how it impacts the future, and how it can be improved
to be more effective in the future as well. Afterwards, the
plan can be re-executed, new goals can be set, and plans can
be adapted. An overview of this cycle is visualized below.
Figure 3: Grant (2003) Generic model of self-regulation
and goal attainment showing self-reflection and insight
Reflection practices in the form of learning journals is
described by Moon, J. (1999) in the book “Learning
journals. A handbook for academics, students and
professional”. Here, she describes reflection as a practice
where a person looks at past experiences, looks at its impact
on the present, and looks at the possible implications for the
future. She also elaborates on how to create an effective
reflection journal. Here, it is important to explain why people
are asked to fill in the journal and to provide examples. This
is confirmed by Roberts and Stark (2008), who measured the
relation between the perceived need for reflection, and the
engagement in the reflection process. Additionally, Moon
states that users should have a sense of freedom in the
reflection process. Therefore, the journal is advised rather
than obliged. Furthermore, there are no restrictions on e.g.
the length of a reflection. However, guidelines like preset
questions are still advised. Another factor to improve self-
reflection is to provide a confidential environment, to
facilitate a personal environment to write down ones
thoughts (Riley‐Douchet, & Wilson, 1997).
As Baumer, Khovanskaya, Matthews, Schwanda Sosik, &
Gay (2014) mention that participants cannot be expected to
start reflecting without a proper definition, resources and
guidelines. Additionally, they node a scale in persuasive
systems related to reflection, where a system can either
propose a certain action based on the reflection, or not.
However, in all scenarios, users can use the reflective system
differently than intended, although a concrete action based
on the reflection can be seen as a persuasive tactic.
Generally, Baumer et al. (2014) advise proper awareness
regarding the theoretical background and the intended
purpose when designing for reflection.
DESIGN: THE JOB CRAFTING JOURNEY
This section introduces the Job Crafting Journey. The job
crafting journey is a web application which guides users
through their job crafting process. The design features are
largely based on the job crafting intervention and job crafting
exercise. Additionally, the work-home resources model is
used to visualize the user’s context, and to base job crafting
goals upon. Since the aim of the design is to enable
autonomous and flexible job crafting support, which can be
used at scale, a mobile platform is chosen. Here, all steps of
the intervention are translated to an autonomous, continuous
application.
First design iteration
Before the final study, an initial design iteration was done.
The goal of the iteration was to find initial design
requirements, by guiding users through a process of defining
their demands and resources, setting goals, and reflecting.
Additionally, the goal was to make sure users were properly
supported during this process with theoretical background
and examples.
To get a basic understanding of an autonomous job crafting
journey, a low-fi prototype was created. The prototype
followed a basic structure, where users were asked to fill in
their job demands and resources, home demands and
resources, and personal resources. Additionally, the
participants were asked to define goals based on this, in the
form of daily challenges. They were invited to derive from
the daily challenges if they wanted, to provide additional
insight in their preferred job crafting procedure. The written
user input was all saved in the online brainstorming tool
Mural (mural.co).
This prototype was tested with four master students from
Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of
Technology. They were asked to use the low-fidelity
prototype for one week.
At the beginning of the week, the pilot group was asked to
describe their home-work environment, and how they
experienced it. After three days, they were given further
explanation to resolve unclarities. Additionally, they were
asked to reflect on the usability of the tool. This was repeated
after one week.
Participants noted that the theory was largely unclear, due to
a lack of examples. Additionally, they were not able to
perform a challenge every day and felt limited in creating a
challenge due to the limited timeframe. These outcomes
were used for the final design.
User flow
Within the final application the following user flow was
created.
Job crafting journey: the tool
The tool consists of two main screens: the home screen, and
the logbook screen. At the home screen, users can first fill in
their job demands and resources, then their home demands
and resources, and finally their personal resources. These
different categories are divided into separate menus, and are
based on the work-home resources model by Brummelhuis
and Bakker (2012). Each category has three characters which
users can click on before submitting. These characters
provide examples for clarification, and are based on three
general forms of demands, as described by Van Ruysseveldt
(2010): physical demands (Bob the construction worker),
mental demands (Dave the student), and emotional demands
(Alice the psychologist). Each character is provided with a
unique working environment, and home environment. The
purpose of these examples is to relate the theory to a real-
life, relatable context, and by doing this, making the theory
less abstract. The start screen and one of the examples are
displayed in figure 4.
Figure 4: Start screen and setup for the demands &
resources.
After the user has filled in the demands and resources, (s)he
can press the “start new challenge” button. Here, a form is
displayed, where each field contains a description of what
should be written down. The user fills in on which demand
or resource the challenge is based, what the goal is within
this demand or resource, the action plan, and finally the
deadline. Here, the three characters are also added. When a
user has filled in the form, (s)he gets a good luck alert. The
alerts are added, to provide the user with a sense of support,
and a confirmation that the step was successfully completed.
Additionally, the challenge appears below the demands and
resources. The challenge creation, alert message, and
challenge overview are displayed in figure 5.
Figure 5: Challenge form, with a good luck notification.
The challenge is displayed below the demands and
resources.
After a user is finished with a challenge, (s)he can press the
“Finish challenge and write reflection” button. A form
appears where the user writes down what (s)he did, want
went well, what did not go well, how this could be improved
in the future, and how the demands and resources have
changed. When the reflection is submitted, the user gets an
alert that the reflection can be found in the logbook. The
logbook displays a chronological list of all submitted
reflections. The reflection creation, alert message, and
logbook are displayed in figure 6.
Figure 6: the reflection form, notification, and logbook.
A final overview of the user interaction with this system is
displayed below in figure 7.
METHODOLOGY
The experiment consisted of a two-week period where
participants used the tool. Before, during and after the
experiment, perception regarding the home-work balance
were measured, as well as the perception on the tool.
Participants
Requirements
For the experiment, 10 participants between 20 and 60 years
old were selected. 2 participants were male, 8 were female.
Additionally, all participants had a job which requires
frequent social contact. 4 participants worked in business
operations and labor sector, 2 in the healthcare sector, 2 in or
for the public sector, 1 in technology consulting, and finally,
one in operations management. Additionally, all participants
normally worked in an office environment and worked at
home during the time of this study, due to limitations
regarding the COVID-19 crisis (Novel, 2020). Furthermore,
they had access to an active internet connection. Finally, they
were all unfamiliar with the job crafting theory as described
in the introduction and related work section. The experiment
was followed in line with the ethical considerations as
described in the ethical approval form (appendix A).
Experiment
Job crafting journey
At the start of the two-week experiment, the participants
were introduced to the tool. During the two weeks, they used
the tool as described in the design section. Twice a week, the
users were sent an e-mail with feedback regarding their
progress, based on the data collected from their submissions.
The e-mail either contained a compliment regarding their
progress, or a reminder to use the application. Additionally,
participants were invited to write down comments regarding
their experience during the experiment. Outside of the
Figure 7: The Job Crafting Journey user flow
interviews, users were not allowed to ask questions. This, to
prevent bias regarding the experience of the tool.
Introduction interview
At the start of the experiment, participants were asked to fill
in the job crafting scale (Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2012), to
measure their job crafting intentions. This way, possible
relations between job crafting intentions and user behavior
could be found. Additionally, they were asked about their
current home-work experience in a sem-structured interview.
Here, they were asked to describe their physical home-work
environment, how they functioned within this environment,
and how they felt about this environment. Afterwards, they
were asked how this environment was different from their
office environment, how they felt about this difference, and
how they dealt with this difference. All questions were asked
in an unbiased, open-ended way, with room for follow-up
questions. All questions from the interviews can be found in
appendix B.
Midterm and concluding interview
After one week, another interview took place. Here, the same
questions were asked as during the introduction interview.
Additionally, they were asked how their situation changed
by using the tool, how they experienced using the tool, what
went well and didn’t go well while using the tool and how
the tool could be improved. This interview was repeated at
the end of the experiment. Additionally, participants were
asked to fill in the job crafting scale at the end of the
experiment. All answers were compared to the logbook
results, gathered from their activities and reflections.
Analysis
Interview questions were analyzed using a thematic analysis,
as described by Braun and Clarke (2012). Two thematic
analyses were performed. The first interview was analyzed
to find themes within the work-home experience. The second
and third interviews were analyzed to find themes regarding
autonomous and continuous job crafting, and the role of the
tool in this process. The analysis from the first interview was
used to determine if themes from the second analysis were a
consequence of the experience in the work-home context.
RESULTS
This section presents the outcomes from the thematic
analyses of the interviews. First, the results of the first
interviews are presented. Afterwards, the second and third
interview are presented. All quotes are translated from
Dutch.
The work-home experience
From the interviews, the main theme was Blurred work and
private life, which was related to fluctuating motivation.
Blurred work and private life consists of elements which play
a role in blurring the line between work time and activities,
and private time and activities. Fluctuating motivation level
consists of aspects which influences work motivation, related
to the blurred work and private life. The three main sub-
themes here were Decreased social support, Blurred work
and private time, and blurred work and life location. Figure
8 shows the relationships between the different themes.
Fluctuating motivation
Fluctuating motivation compared to the work environment
was largely a consequence of distracting surroundings, and
the blurred line between the work and home environment.
Participants noted that sometimes they were distracted by
things at home. This is also noted in the following example:
“I get distracted by my phone, or laundry in the laundry in
the washing machine. And then I start thinking of 300 other
things.”
Decreased social support
Related to this fluctuating motivation was decreased social
support. Because participants worked at home, they only saw
their colleagues during pre-arranged meetings. Additionally,
all meetings were via a screen or phone, removing many
factors of the social interaction. Although decreased social
support resulted in less effective discussions, others noted
that the decreased social contact increased their focus. An
example of both views is shown below:
Figure 8: thematic analysis of the decreased focus at home, and blurred work and private life.
“On location, a lot of people come to chit-chat. This takes a
lot of time. Now it’s very concrete, and I can take steps in my
work.”
“I’m more productive at work. At work, I have faster contact
and discussions with colleagues.”
Blurred work and private time
Just like the decreased social support, blurred work and
private time had advantages and disadvantages. Participants
found it hard to create a personal barrier between their work
time and private time, resulting in the fact that they needed
to take special measures to prevent working in the weekend.
As one participant noted:
“Your relaxation moments disappear when you don’t
consciously plan them in. [..] There is no difference between
work and not work.”
On the other hand, the blurred work and private time resulted
in the fact that participants were able to create their own
schedule when desired. This way, participants had more
control over their workday, which is illustrated by the
following example:
“I can arrange my work more now. First, I had appointments
at different locations, and you held on to the 9-5 culture.”
Blurred work and life location
A consequence of the fact that participants were at home the
whole day, was that the difference between the work location
and the private location was blurred. This was characterized
by a desire for diverse surroundings, and frustrations due to
a lack of personal space. A positive effect was decreased
travel time, as is also visible in the previous quote.
Participants solved the desire for diverse surroundings by
going outside and creating a specific work location at home.
This way, they created physical work and private spaces. For
example, one participant started working upstairs:
“I had to get used to it. Especially since work and private
overlap. Therefore, I started working upstairs.”
The blurred home and work location also caused frustrations
with participants, especially when they lived with multiple
people, who all had to work at the same location. As one
participant noted:
“frustrations can occur. It’s different when you are together
in the evening, or when you are forced to sit with each
other.”
The job crafting experience
After the first and second week, the job crafting experience
with the tool was discussed with all participants. The
interviews from both weeks were analyzed together in a
thematic analysis. The three overarching themes are
autonomous job crafting, continuous job crafting, and
application properties. An overview of the results is visible
in figure 9.
Autonomous job crafting
The autonomous theme consists of factors which allow
participants to perform their autonomous job crafting
process. This theme consists of two sub-themes, support and
Personalization. Both themes consist of factors which can
facilitate autonomous job crafting.
The support theme consists of factors which assists
participants in their job crafting process. The sub-theme
consists of four parts. Feedback on progress, various
examples, clear explanation for each step, and clear structure
in the job crafting process. In general, participants desired a
form of feedback on how they were doing, mainly in the form
of a progress visualization. This way, participants wanted to
get information on how they were doing, as well as a
motivator to use the application, as one participant noted:
Figure 9: Thematic analysis of the job crafting experience.
“In another program we got visualizations with diagrams of
our progress. […] this helped a lot. It made me aware of my
progress.”
Besides the e-mail reminders, this was absent from the
application used in this study. One participant also
mentioned a desire for comparison and discussion with
colleagues, while other participants desired more in-depth
feedback after a step.
Support in the form of various examples was mainly related
to the three characters provided by the tool. People
appreciated the examples on top of the explanation given at
the beginning of the experiment. Additionally, they
appreciated that they could choose a character which fit best
with their situation. As one participant mentioned:
“I used the three examples. Alice fit the most with me, so this
example was useful.”
In addition to the examples and the introduction given at the
beginning of the experiment, participants desired a to-the-
point explanation while using the tool. As two participants
mentioned:
“I miss a short context and explanation of the story in the
application. I’d prefer it in a schematic way, short and
powerful.”
Lastly, the participants desired a clear structure throughout
the process. Examples are general structure in the
functionality of the tool, but also in the explanation:
“Because the application provides so little structure, I notice
that it takes a lot of effort to formulate goals.”
The other factor for successful autonomous job crafting was
personalization. This personalization came in the form of
self-regulated reminders and fine-tuning the demands and
resources. All participants wanted to be reminded of their
goals. However, the number of reminders differed per
person. While most were satisfied with the two reminders per
week as used in the experiment, several people noted a
preference for different types of reminders. An example is
shown below:
“When creating a challenge, I want to indicate when and
how I will be reminded.”
In terms of fine-tuning the demands and resources,
participants noted that the application provided insufficient
control. Participants were unable to indicate which demands
or resources were important to them, and if they were
positive or negative. The result was that it was hard for
participants to choose what demand or resource to work on.
This fine-tuning was also mentioned during the interviews:
“I would like to indicate if I like a demand or not. I’m focused
on reflection, and it would be nice to make a visual for if I
like a demand or not.”
“Some demands get bigger or smaller. So I want to be able
to make them big or small.”
Continuous job crafting
Continuous job crafting consists of factors which allow
participants to implement job crafting in their daily life as a
continuous process. is divided into three sub-themes:
Continuous action-reflection journey, natural link between
demand & resources and goals, and seamless integration
into workflow. The first two are related to the job crafting
process, while the third one is more related to the practical
implementation.
For the continuous action-reflection journey, many
participants indicated the desire for intermediate reflections,
and a clear link of a reflection to next steps. Participants who
had long-term goals desired intermediate reflections and
treated the action plan largely as intermediate goals, as is
shown in the following example:
“When I want to reach a goal in two weeks, I need to
evaluate In between.”
They even created intermediate reflections, although this was
not an explicit functionality of the tool. Participants who had
set short-term goals, had the desire to link the outcome
directly to a new goal, as described in this example:
“Now the reflection closes the goal, but I want to link a next
step to it.”
The natural link between demands & resources and goals is
related to this point. Many participants requested a clearer
link between the demands & resources, the goals, and the
reflections. Many wanted a goal to follow directly on a
demand or resource, and the demands & resources to directly
follow on a reflection, as is shown in the example below:
“The biggest point is the integration of the demands and
resources with the goals you set.”
Seamless integration into people’s workflow consisted of
time-related comments, and comments related to
convenience. One barrier for using the tool was the time it
took to fill in the demands, resources, and goals:
“You don’t just fill it in for five minutes. You cannot do it in
between things, you really have to think about it. Now, I did
it Sunday afternoon.”
Another barrier was the fact that the tool was on a separate
webpage:
“The tool is not integrated well enough in my daily life.”
Application properties
The application properties consists of design elements which
contribute to the overall user experience for an application
which supports job crafting. The sub-themes from this theme
are specifically related to the user interface. These were the
simple interface and interactive media.
The users indicated that they liked the simplicity of the
interface. All important information was directly visible, and
there were little distractions. It made the tool clear and
accessible, as quoted in the examples below:
“It is accessible, and self-explanatory.”
However, within the explanation of the process, and within
the feedback, participants desired less simplicity, and more
interactive media, mainly with the goal of providing
feedback and explanations. Examples were feedback in the
form of progress visualizations, and explanations in the form
of videos. One participant explained the usage of another
application:
“Everyday you’d see the chart moving. This visualization
helped a lot and made me more aware. That would be
valuable for this tool as well.”
Application usage
From the logbook of all participants, the amount of finished
challenges and the content of were derived Although the
amount of participant was not sufficient to make claims
regarding the quantity of finished challenges, what can be
noted is that many participants reflected at different moments
for different reasons. As stated in the interviews, some
participants used it as a progress update for their challenges,
while others used it to close off their challenge.
Notable was that although most participants were able the
describe concrete future improvements, none of the
participants followed this up with a related challenge,
although participants mentioned in the interviews that they
desired the ability to directly link a next step to the reflection.
However, all participants were able to clearly describe how
their demands and resources had changed based on the
challenge. An example is given below:
“I have more control over my working hours and can
therefore better separate my work and private life.”
DISCUSSION
The results show that in order for a job crafting application
to facilitate continuous and autonomous job crafting,
changes should be made relative to how job crafting support
is structured right now. Additionally, several design
requirements should be considered to support this new
structure.
Continuous and autonomous action-reflection process
To facilitate a continuous and autonomous job crafting
process, a new structure should be created, compared to past
job crafting interventions. While current interventions like
the job crafting intervention by Van de Heuvel et al. (2015)
rely on an introduction session, which is followed by an
executing session, and finally a reflection session, I propose
that for a continuous and autonomous job crafting process,
these steps should become smaller and more frequent. From
the interviews it became apparent that filling in the demand
and resources resulted in two bottlenecks: the time required
to fill these in was a barrier to start with the job crafting
process. Afterwards, selecting a demand or resource to work
on posed a second bottleneck, since it was hard to prioritize.
Both bottlenecks can be eliminated by asking employees to
think of one possible job or home factor which they feel need
improvement, on which the job crafting plan follows
directly. Within the plan, users indicate an aspect of their
current context (demands or resources) they want to work on,
what they exactly want to improve, how they want to
improve this, when they want to be reminded, and when they
want to be finished. This way, employees do not have to
choose, and the process to start job crafting is significantly
shorter.
When a goal is completed, the employees should directly
reflect, instead of waiting for a reflection session. Within this
reflection, users describe what they have done, what went
well, what did not go well, and how their context (demands
or resources) has changed. Users can then choose to build
further on an existing demand or resource with a new
challenge or create a new one by starting a totally new
challenge. When relating this to the Generic model of self-
regulation and goal attainment by Grant (2003), the success
part should be directly followed by a new goal. By ending
this reflection with a new goal, the job crafting process can
be continued in an organic way.
By implementing this new structure, instructions and
feedback for the job crafting process can be tailored at what
the employee is working on in that given moment.
Additionally, employees can perform the job crafting process
at their own pace, for an unlimited amount of time.
However, these employees still need proper support. One of
the goals of this study was to find factors which could help
employees in their job crafting process without the need for
human support. From the results, it became clear, that
without human support, support should be provided in other
ways, namely with background information and feedback.
During this study, it became clear that to-the-point theory
combined with personified examples can provide
background information, as participants were all able to
create job crafting goals without the need of a workshop. By
providing the users with reminders and additional feedback
in their performance, insecurities regarding their progress
can be eliminated, and the job crafting goals remain a point
of attention for the users.
To make sure participants performed their job crafting
activities, reminders were sent. However, from the results, it
became clear that many participants desired the possibility to
set their own reminders. Therefore, I suggest that these
reminders become a part of the challenge creation process.
For example, employees could be invited to set reminders on
their phone or in their agenda before starting a challenge.
How to implement these reminders is still an opportunity for
further research.
What should be noted is that without the help of a digital, or
automated system, feedback still must be provided by a
coach, just like in current interventions. In this new process,
the role of the coach changes from a person who leads the
process with sessions and reminders, to a person who assists
employees in their process. An overview of the new job
crafting process is presented in figure 10.
Design opportunities
This job crafting process can be supported by means of a
digital design. Here, design can play a role in providing users
with more control over their demands & resources,
documenting their job crafting process, and providing
additional support and feedback.
Users should have the freedom to prioritize what they find
important. By creating an overview of past challenges, a
system can provide feedback on how they have grown over
time, for example with an interactive timeline. This way, it
becomes easier to start new challenges based on past
reflections.
To guide users through their job crafting process, videos and
images can enrich the theory and examples, as became
apparent from the interviews. This way, examples become
more engaging. Additionally, the application can provide the
user with just the information which is relevant at a specific
step in the process. This can increase the flow of the job
crafting process.
During the challenges, feedback can support users to actively
work on the challenges next to the reminders. This is
especially relevant after a reflection, since this determines if
a user continues the job crafting process. An example could
be the use of metaphors to give the job crafting process an
emotional connection to the user, as described by Kim, Hong
& Magerko (2010). Ways of providing feedback by means
of a digital system are still opportunities for future research.
Limitations and future opportunities
While no clear relationship between the characteristics of the
job crafting application and the work-home experience are
found, it should be noted that this application is specifically
tested in the home environment. Therefore, the insights
gained from this study cannot be directly applied to a
different context than the home context. An interesting next
step is to validate these insights within various working
contexts.
Another limitation is the fact that the participants were
diverse in terms of profession, living situation, and age.
Some data could not be used during the thematic analysis,
since it was not supported with enough quotes. For example,
the desire for a social feature in the job crafting application
was mentioned by only one participant. However, this could
still be an interesting design opportunity. Testing this
application within a specific profession could therefore result
in themes specific to that profession, and consequently
influence how job crafting support should be realized in that
specific scenario.
Lastly, a large opportunity lies in validating the
recommendations made in this paper. Although they directly
follow in the results, they are still an interpretation, and
should therefore not be regarded as facts, but rather relevant
directions for the future of job crafting support. Additionally,
the effects of this method on job crafting intentions and
behavior still has to be researched, before we can determine
if this method is effective.
Contribution
The main contribution made in this paper is the restructuring
of job crafting support, to be suitable for autonomous and
continuous job crafting. While current job crafting
interventions like the Job Crafting Exercise by Berg et al.
(2013), and the Job Crafting Intervention by Van den Heuvel
et al. (2015) are still good options when there is a possibility
for human support, this paper has defined a process to
facilitate autonomous job crafting in the form of a continuous
action-reflection process, which largely removes the barrier
to start with job crafting. This process can be integrated in a
digital system, creating an opportunity to enable job crafting
at scale. Additional research is required before we can say
that this method can be a proper replacement for current job
crafting interventions in certain scenarios.
Figure 10: Diagram of the continuous and autonomous job crafting process
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