PROCOME researcher receives two-year grant from FORTE for project that explores how employees can redesign their work to match their needs
KI researcher Marta Roczniewska has received funding from FORTE for her project "Job crafting interventions − what is required for employees to be able to design and redesign their work?"
Marta Roczniewska is a researcher at PROCOME, Medical Management Centre at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, and SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland.
Congratulations Marta. Can you tell us a little about the background of the project?
"The abundant changes that occur within and outside organizations require flexibility in how jobs are performed. To deal with this issue, organizations often use a top-down approach, in which management redesigns employees’ jobs to fit the new situation. The problem is that this solution neglects workforce diversity, is inadequate for rapid changes and may result in a poor person-job fit. Thus, it seems vital to promote solutions that allow employees to be proactive in redesigning their own jobs to adjust to the new reality This type of proactivity was named job crafting."
What is job crafting?
"Job crafting refers to self-initiated changes that employees introduce to their jobs to better deal with the demands of their work environment. For example, employees can seek more resources, modify how they execute their tasks or start new stimulating projects in their workplace. They can also be stimulated by the proper work environment or by organizational interventions. However, knowledge on job crafting interventions and their effects is still scarce and spread across distinct approaches. We have yet to determine which factors are necessary or sufficient to achieve desired outcomes."
What is the aim of the project?
"The overall aim of this project is to investigate how to implement effective job crafting interventions. This is done by exploring the program theories and implementation strategies used in effective job crafting interventions, but also patterns of context and process factors that affect their outcomes, and last, but not least, the factors that affect their sustainability. This project will start with a systematic review of job crafting intervention literature. I will apply an innovative analytic method (coincidence analysis) to identify conditions that affect intervention outcomes. Through Group Concept Mapping, I will address the issue of implementation sustainability of job crafting interventions. Finally, a co-created program logic process, which will involve practitioners, will provide implementation guidelines for such interventions in Sweden."
In what ways will this project help?
"This project will contribute to theory by integrating knowledge of mechanisms that make job crafting interventions successful, and to practice, by delivering effective tools that organizations can use to promote job crafting behaviours."
Who is taking part in the project?
“The main collaborators will be Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz, Henna Hasson and Anne Richter, all affiliated with PROCOME. I will also cooperate closely with Arnold Bakker from Erasmus University in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), who is a global leading expert in job crafting research."