How happy would you be if you got to write your own job description?
According to Central Michigan University graduate student Minseo Kim and her adviser Terry Beehr, you’d be pretty darn happy.
For so long, employees have simply been parts to plug into the organizational machine, but that is beginning to shift. Now many employers are realizing that their employees are actually human individuals with the desire for purpose, meaning, and satisfaction in their work and personal lives.
Kim’s research realizes this shift and notes that not only does an employee who is able to help “job craft” their work roles become happier, they actually become more productive, which benefits the company.
The research also notes that for this to work, there must be an organizational culture that promotes this, starting with management.
The research which studies over 300 employees over two months was published in the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies and was featured in Dan Digmann’s article in CMU News.
Questions for Discussion
- Why would creating one’s own job description lead to greater job satisfaction?
- Is “job crafting” an accurate phrase for this process?
- How do you think this could impact the hiring process for employers?
- Was the number of employees studied sufficient for Kim and Beehr to reach their conclusions?
- How did they measure job satisfaction?
- What would you change to extend this research?
Wide Open Research 