MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How Job Crafting Can Make Work More Satisfying

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of employee engagement for organizations. Disengagement results in lost productivity that costs employers an estimated $500 million annually. According to Gallup research, over 65% of workers don’t consider themselves engaged and want their jobs and current roles to be more satisfying, meaningful, and fulfilling. These alarming revelations are consistent with a series of recent studies, which concluded that employees are switching off because their skills aren’t fully utilized; they’re not challenged or stimulated, and they feel that they lack flexibility and autonomy.

For managers, then, determining how to improve engagement and satisfaction is a mission-critical priority, particularly in a post-pandemic working world where uncertainty is rife. Job crafting is one approach being used to do so in the wake of COVID-19.

About the Author

Benjamin Laker (@drbenlaker) is a professor of leadership at Henley Business School at the University of Reading. Charmi Patel is an associate professor of international human resource management at Henley Business School. Pawan Budhwar is a professor of international human resource management at Aston Business School at Aston University. Ashish Malik (@maliknewcas) is an associate professor of strategic human resources management at Newcastle Business School at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

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