The Art of Job Crafting
Learn how to redesign your current role to better align with your strengths, values, and interests—without changing jobs.
Job crafting is the practice of actively shaping and redesigning your work to make it more meaningful, engaging, and aligned with your personal strengths and values.
What is Job Crafting?
Rather than waiting for your employer to redesign your job, you can proactively reshape three key dimensions:
1. Task Crafting
Add, remove, or modify tasks to better match your strengths and interests.
Examples:
- Volunteer for projects that use your VIA signature strengths
- Delegate tasks that drain you (when possible)
- Find creative ways to incorporate skills you want to develop
2. Relational Crafting
Change how, when, and with whom you interact at work.
Examples:
- Seek mentorship from someone whose career path inspires you
- Build relationships with colleagues who energize you
- Join cross-functional teams or communities of practice
3. Cognitive Crafting
Reframe how you think about your work to find greater purpose and meaning.
Examples:
- Connect daily tasks to larger organizational or societal impact
- View challenges as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles
- Recognize how your role contributes to the team's success
How to Start Job Crafting
- Assess your current role: Use your Work-Life Circle, VIA Strengths, and Career Values results to identify gaps
- Identify opportunities: Where can you add tasks that energize you or reduce draining activities?
- Start small: Make one small change this week (e.g., volunteer for one project that uses your top strength)
- Get permission when needed: For larger changes, discuss with your manager using the "Yes, and..." framework
- Track impact: After 2-3 months, retake your Work-Life Circle assessment to measure progress
The "Yes, And..." Framework
When proposing changes to your manager:
- Yes: "I'm committed to delivering X results..."
- And: "...and I'd like to explore doing it in a way that better uses my analytical strengths."
This shows initiative while maintaining accountability.
Real-World Example
Sarah, Marketing Coordinator
Challenge: Sarah felt stuck in her role, spending 80% of her time on email campaigns (which drained her) and only 20% on creative strategy (which energized her).
Job Crafting Actions:
- Task: Proposed automating repetitive email workflows, freeing 10 hours/week for strategy work
- Relational: Joined the product team's brainstorming sessions to contribute creative insights
- Cognitive: Reframed email campaigns as "user engagement experiments" rather than "sending newsletters"
Result: After 3 months, Sarah's Work-Life Circle score improved from 2.8 to 4.1. She also earned a promotion to Senior Marketing Strategist.
When Job Crafting Isn't Enough
Job crafting works best when the core of your role aligns with your values and strengths. If you've tried job crafting for 6+ months and still feel misaligned, it may be time to:
- Explore an internal transfer to a different team or role
- Have a career conversation with your manager about long-term growth
- Consider a career transition (see our Career Transitions Guide)
Resources & Next Steps
- Your Assessments: Review your Career Dashboard to identify specific crafting opportunities
- Book: Designing Your Work Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
- Research: Amy Wrzesniewski's seminal work on job crafting at Yale School of Management
- Tool: Job Crafting Exercise by the University of Michigan's Center for Positive Organizations
Ready to Take Action?
Use your Career Dashboard to identify specific opportunities for job crafting based on your unique strengths and values.
View Your Career Dashboard