Job Crafting in Aging Employees

Abstract

Person-Job Fit and Job Crafting Job crafting is founded in the concept of person-environment fit (P-E fit; Lauver and Kristof-Brown 2001), and more specifically, in the concept of person-job fit (P-J fit). This concept describes the fit or match between the needs and abilities of the person on the one hand and the supplies and demands of the job, respectively, on the other hand. Employees’ needs reflect indispensable requirements, such as a sense of autonomy and competence, that are necessary in order to function and thrive. Abilities reflect personal resources, such as knowledge about a certain topic, that help individuals to effectively perform their work tasks and to cope with stressful work demands. Supplies refer to external resources that individuals receive from their job and working environment, for instance, support from colleagues. Job demands relate to occupational expectations and obligations that employees are confronted with, for example, time pressure. When these four factors are in balance, employees are likely to feel a good P-J fit between themselves and what their job offers and requires from them. P-J fit, in turn, is positively associated with job satisfaction and performance (Lauver and Kristof-Brown 2001). However, employees do not always experience a good P-J fit between needs and supplies, or between abilities and demands. Job crafting is one type of proactive behavior that employees can engage in to modulate their job’s supplies or demands (i.e., the J-side of P-J fit) in order to increase P-J fit (Tims and Bakker 2010). The term job crafting was first introduced by Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001). They defined job crafting as self-initiated behaviors displayed by employees with the goal to increase the meaningfulness of their jobs. Although these authors did not explicitly position the concept in the P-J fit framework, their definition fits well with the idea that job crafting is enacted to achieve a better fit between the need for a meaningful job and the job’s supply of meaning. An important notion of the concept of job crafting is that individuals actively change the job (i.e., the environment) rather than themselves. By actively crafting their job characteristics and changing physical, relational, and cognitive boundaries of their work tasks, employees can fit environmental supplies and demands to their individual needs and abilities and achieve a better P-J fit. Based on qualitative data gathered through personal interviews, Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) concluded that job crafting can be observed in three different forms. From the physical perspective, job crafting involves changing the amount, scope, and type of the tasks the employee has to accomplish. The relational form of job crafting includes changing interactions with supervisors, colleagues, or clients by increasing or decreasing contact with certain people. Finally, employees can also make cognitive changes