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Burnout Beyond the Wellness Programs: The Art of Job Crafting




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 dwell on the remedies of burnout, let's talk about what causes it in the first place. From a psychological perspective, the hazardous effects of 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 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 that everyone is going to start meditating and exercising, job crafting is a bottom-up approach which puts employees in the driver’s seat in 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 changing how much time, energy, and attention are allocated 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. Use activities that are in line 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 to the exclusion of other things happening in their own bodies or 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 all have experienced this state when we get 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 - working on your presentation, preparing your report, crunching some numbers, talking to your clients, redesigning things, leading a team, running a meeting, etc. In 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 which 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 our boring 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 meaningfulness in your job. One way to accomplish that is by providing others valuable help and support in carrying out their jobs, thus encouraging others to give valuable help and support in return – a form of mutual empowering. Although this may only provide a temporary fix and may not be possible due to your job requirements, avoid or reduce interaction with people who brew 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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