Much
has been written about how work-related stress is associated with burnout and depression.
Burnout has become a buzzword that has spawned a modern-day cottage industry of one-size-fits-all wellness
programs. Before we discuss the remedies for burnout, let's examine what causes it in the first place. From a psychological perspective, the
hazardous effects of the work environment on health, aka burnout, have been
explained by the effort-reward model.
According to this model, the imbalance created by high “costs” (spending high
effort at work or over-commitment) and low “benefits” (in terms of monetary
gratification, career opportunities, esteem, respect, and job security)
produces emotional distress affecting both mental and physical health (Siegrist & Li, 2016). In fact, research shows that this effort-reward
imbalance is associated with a 1.5-fold increased risk of depressive disorders
(Rugulies et al., 2017). In this context, the concept of “job crafting” is a
helpful tool to correct the imbalance between effort and reward at work.
Unlike
the top-down, employer-driven wellness programs geared toward burnout that assume everyone will start meditating and exercising, job crafting is a bottom-up approach that puts employees in the driver’s seat for cultivating meaningfulness in their work. In plain English, job crafting is the
process of redefining and reimagining one’s job in a personally meaningful way.
It involves doing one or more of the three things mentioned below that reshape
the boundaries of one’s work while remaining within the confines of one’s
overall job responsibility (Berg et al., 2013):
1. Task
crafting: changing the number, scope, and type of job. This is accomplished by
adding or dropping tasks, altering the nature of tasks, or adjusting the allocation of time, energy, and attention to individual tasks.
2.
Cognitive
crafting: changing the meaning of the work that one does, i.e., one’s
understanding of the purpose of their work or what they believe is achieved in
the work.
3.
Relational
crafting: changing the quality and/or amount of interaction with others
encountered in the job.
Of
note, these categories are not mutually exclusive. Job crafting is a proactive
approach initiated by employees and is a continuous rather than a one-time
event. A helpful and objective way to craft your job is to use the Meaning,
Pleasure, Strengths (MPS) process (Ben-Shahar, 2007). In this process, you ask
yourself the following three questions (the answers are not necessarily limited
to your work):
- What gives me Meaning, or what provides me a sense of purpose?
- What gives me Pleasure, or what do I enjoy doing?
- What are my Strengths, or what am I good at?
Once
you have answered these questions, look for any overlapping responses. These
overlapping responses are the common themes that provide you with meaning, give
you a sense of pleasure, and also are your strengths. Utilize activities that align with the MPS process to craft your job.
While
changing the number, scope, and type of job tasks (task crafting) may be
limited due to organizational constraints, it is still possible to emphasize
tasks that get you in a state of “flow.” The person in a state of flow pays
undivided attention to the task at hand, excluding other things happening in their own bodies or the external environment. There is a feeling of
spontaneity, with loss of sense of time, and the task appears to “flow” on by
itself. Flow taps into your intrinsic motivation and is a more powerful
motivator than external rewards (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Flow is not limited
to sports or creative arts. We have all experienced this state when we become so
immersed in activities that give us a sense of pleasure or mastery that we are
oblivious to our surroundings. In these situations, we don’t focus on the
outcome of the activity, as the effort of doing the activity is in itself
rewarding. People experience these states of flow in their work, such as working on a presentation, preparing a report, crunching numbers, talking to clients, redesigning things, leading a team, or running a meeting. In the context of job crafting, while no one can be in a state of continuous flow, it would be helpful to balance your day by adding activities that get you in a state of flow, juxtaposed with tasks that are a drag.
Besides
changing what you have to do at work,
you can also change how you see it (cognitive
crafting) and who you interact with
at work (relational crafting). When feeling bored and unmotivated at your job,
look at what you are doing through the lens of how it can help others. Ask
yourself, “How is the work I am doing helping someone down the road? What meaning
can I find here?” For example, if an individual thinks that their job involves
filling out tedious health insurance paperwork, they can reframe the purpose of
their work as “helping people get insurance that could save their lives.”
Meaning or purpose is fostered by doing something in service of a cause larger
than yourself.
Finally,
building relationships that enable you to feel a sense of pride, dignity, or
worth cultivates a sense of meaning in your job. One way to accomplish this is by providing others with valuable help and support in carrying out their jobs, thereby encouraging them to give valuable help and support in return – a form of mutual empowerment. Although this may
only provide a temporary fix and may not be feasible due to your job requirements, try to avoid or minimize interactions with people who spread negativity.
Research
has shown that job crafting, besides increasing meaning and joy at work, also
leads to increased competence, personal growth, and better ability to cope with
future adversity (Berg et al., 2008). If you have tried and not benefited from
employer-sponsored cookie-cutter wellness programs that don’t consider your individual strengths and values, it may be worthwhile to take charge as
your own job crafter.
To learn more about evidence-based self-management techniques that
are proven to work for depression, check out Dr. Duggal's Author Page.
HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA
REFERENCES
Ben-Shahar, T. (2007).
Happier. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Berg, J. M., Dutton, J.
E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2008). What is job crafting and why does it matter?
Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/What-is-Job-Crafting-and-Why-Does-it-Matter1.pdf
Berg,
J. M., Dutton, J. E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2013). Job crafting and
meaningful work. In B. J. Dik, Z. S. Byrne, and M. F. Steger (Editors), Purpose
and meaning in workplace (pp. 81-104). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Csikszentmihalyi, M.
(1990). Flow. New York, NY: HarperCollins
Publishers.
Rugulies, R., Aust, B.,
& Madsen, I. E. (2017). Effort-reward imbalance at work and risk of
depressive disorders. A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective
cohort studies. Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment and Health, 43(4), 294-306.
Siegrist, J., & Li,
J. (2016). Associations of extrinsic and intrinsic components of work stress
with health: a systematic review of evidence on the effort-reward imbalance
model. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 13,
432; doi: 10.3390/ijerph13040432
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