Using job crafting to shape my career

Michelle Reid, People and Operations Director at IOM (job crafting model).

Michelle Reid, People and Operation’s Director at IOM will be sharing her experiences of job crafting and how it has helped her shape her career. Michelle has a successful history in implementing, leading, and optimising multi-level business & HR practices.

Michelle was recently listed in the HR Most Influential List 2022.

I started my role as HR Manager at IOM 5 years ago. The purpose of our organisation is to improve the health of people in their workplace and in the wider environment. 

When I joined the company, what they thought they wanted wasn’t actually needed. As a result, my role now is completely different and I have used job crafting to shape it in a significant number of ways. FYI job crafting is making small, tangible changes to your job to make it more meaningful, engaging and a better fit for you as an individual. 

Job crafting for me is very much aligned to my purpose. My purpose is to unlock the value of people to unleash commercial success. If there are tasks on my to-do list that don’t align with my purpose then I’ll ditch them in favour of investing my time into tasks that do.

In this blog I wanted to share with you some job crafting examples, including the 5 different ways I have crafted my job.

The 5 types of job crafting

Task crafting

At IOM, I have full responsibility for the HR function end to end, so I have to think cleverly about the tasks that I do. The way I task craft is by thinking about the tasks I enjoy doing, those I don’t enjoy doing, and how I can delegate tasks to people who may have an interest in some of my tasks (this takes the pressure off me).

A great exercise to kick start task crafting is the love and loathe exercise.

Relationship crafting

Relationship crafting is about understanding people and the relationships we have with them

When I first joined IOM the first thing I did was walk around and talk to every single person. This wasn’t with the aim of understanding what people did in their roles, but to understand how they felt about working for IOM and what they liked and disliked about the organisation. I also asked them what they would change if it was their business and what they thought was standing in their way.

This enabled me to think about where I needed to apply my skills and knowledge to help drive improvements for them. So my relationships were at the heart of that. I have become a relationship chameleon, adapting my relationships and crafting my approaches to different people and circumstances.

Purpose crafting

Purpose crafting is the one I find harder than anything else.

Subconsciously, I knew my purpose deep down. But it is only in the last 2 years that I came to this realisation and I have written it down in front of me in my diary ever since. As soon as people are connected to their purpose, the physical tasks they do, the relationships they have the skills they hold and how they feel, everything becomes aligned. They move to a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. They are not wedded by their job descriptions, titles or how they have always done things, they begin to think “why am I doing this, can this be done better, what more can I do or bring?”

Skill crafting 

I find skill crafting the easiest because I’m so nosey!

I know I don’t know everything so I’m always consciously trying to learn lots of new things. So if there is something I’m curious about I just go and find it out. Google is my best friend! I’m constantly building new skills all of the time with less of a reliance on going to a course, skills are things that are crafted and learned in lots of different new ways including great conversations with others who are in the know.  Skills sharing is brilliant and builds the feeling of reciprocation and value.

Wellbeing crafting

In regards to other people's wellbeing I’d say I’m great. In regards to my own… not so good.

A recent example involves an employee whose job is a combination of both physical and mental activities. Therefore they typically experience an energy dip mid-week. One of the ways they boost their energy is cycling, but they usually have to wait until the weekend to do this. I told him to take a few hours midweek to go cycling! He has now seen an increase in his energy, productivity and motivation, a no brainer for the business and for him.

Areas I want to improve in job crafting

Job crafting is something I do without thinking. However, one area I know I need to improve on is wellbeing crafting. When I’m feeling tired or drained, exercise is the first thing to go. It’s something that fills my tank, yet the thought of cardio puts me off all together. Even though I know it does wonders for my mental and physical health.

However, I have got into the routine of going to Zumba twice a week and I attend two external networking groups every Friday. Both of these activities boost my energy and productivity and make me feel good - win, win all round!

You can learn more about job crafting here, you can also connect with Michelle on LinkedIn if you would like to ask her any questions or have a chat.

Are you still thinking like Henry Ford?

“Any customer can have a car painted in any colour that he wants as long as it is black?”

Do you know who said this? 

Many of us may recognise this as a quote which attributed to Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor company. 

Ford made this comment in relation to the Model T car in 1909. Despite lobbying from his sales and design team, Ford was adamant that his company should save costs and leverage efficiencies by only offering one type of chassis and one colour of car. And that colour was black. 

In his autobiography, Ford stated that his rational was that 95 per cent of potential car purchasers were not interested in the colour of their car and that they should be focusing on these consumers rather than the 5 per cent – labelled by Ford as the ‘special customers’ – who were potentially interested in a more distinctive look. 

There is no denying that Henry Ford’s approach was successful; when the final Model T ran off the production line on 25 May 1927, over 15 million cars had been produced. Whilst it is difficult to challenge the success of Henry Ford’s original thinking, it’s certainly fair to say that the one-size-fits-all approach is not shared by modern car manufacturers and does not remain at Ford today.

In the past, car manufacturers and designers approached heterogeneity and diversity amongst their customers as a problem or business challenge to overcome. 

Over time this mindset has shifted and manufacturers are increasingly recognising that responding to and tapping into individual preferences is a source of competitive advantage.

People who want a wider range of purchasing and personalization options are no longer thought of as demanding. To encourage and enable people to choose the options for their cars, showrooms can now be thought of almost as personalization centres set up to create a customized car-buying and driving experience. 

As well as being able to see and drive test and show cars, some showrooms now offer people the opportunity to use immersive technology to configure their cars. Having put on a virtual reality (VR) headset, customers of Volkswagen, Audi, Tesla and Toyota are now able to see, feel and hear what their final car will look like.7 Using augmented reality (AR) it’s now possible for customers to use their smartphone or tablet to project what their car will look like sitting on the driveway of their house.Why work should come in any colour

Why work should come in any colour

Unfortunately many organisations, leaders and managers view work, people, jobs and employee with the same eyes and dogma as Henry Ford. 

They see difference and diversity as a threat to productivity and effectiveness. They tend to box people in rather than setting them free. 

HR is often complicit in this too. We design detailed job descriptions which tend to tether people into fixed ways of working rather than trusting them to shape their roles (we’ve created an alternative to job descriptions). And we often subject requests to change or alter aspects of a job to formal scrutiny to determine whether or not they are ‘reasonable.’

In reality research overwhelmingly shows that when people are trusted to shape their work, they do so in a positive and constructive way. And in ways that benefit their colleagues and customers too. 

A diverse range of organisations including Virgin Money, Logitech, Widerøe Airlines and Connect Health have all reported benefits from enabling and encouraging job crafting as a practice and creating a more personalized people experience through applying concepts such as job crafting.

It’s time to bring this personal touch to work. 

Allowing people to personalise their roles, brings reality to the rhetoric that organisations want people to bring their whole and best selves to work. Rather than treating employees’ diverse strengths, passions and experiences as a threat to be controlled, genuinely people-focussed organisations can use this as a source of competitive advantage.

Not only does evidence suggest clear business benefits of creating a more inclusive and human approach to working, it is just fundamentally and morally the right thing to do. Afterall, work should not just be black. It should come in any colour.

If you are curious about exploring these ideas further you might ask yourself:

• Does your organisation genuinely treat diversity and difference amongst people as a threat or an opportunity?

• Are people able to personalise their experiences as work? It this open to all, or to use Ford’s analogy only ‘special employee’ such as those in management

• Do you create job descriptions and role profiles that limit rather than unlock the potential of colleagues?

If you want to explore these questions further get in touch. You might also find the following resources useful. 

The Job Canvas: A digital upgrade to the job description. Developed to support modern, flexible working practices.

Job Crafting: A concept that enables people to personalise their work and align their strengths and skillset to their job.

5 reasons job descriptions are a waste of time

Job descriptions are a waste of time

Do you have a job description?

If you do, when was the last time you looked at it?

Do you even know where the latest version is saved?

Our guess, it’s probably stored on a hard drive somewhere, collecting virtual dust. 

We wonder whether job descriptions are fit for purpose in the current world of work. Whilst there is a big list of things wrong with job descriptions, these are our top 5 for today.

Our 5 top things wrong with job descriptions:

1) Old news / Instantly out of date

Our jobs are constantly changing, yet our descriptions stay the same. Once written job descriptions remain frozen in time, untouched until they are needed for a recruitment, promotion or performance process.

We believe: Job descriptions should constantly evolve and change in the way that our work does yet they seldom do.

2) Unrealistic

Job descriptions are a little like many social media profiles. They tend to show the best bits but deliberately hide or obscure the day-to-day realities of our lives. Similarly, job descriptions tend to paint a positive picture of a role without truly representing what it looks and feels like to do a job on a day-to-day basis.

We believe: Job descriptions should give readers a true sense and representation of what it feels like to do a particular job.

3) Too much or too little

There tends to be no in-between with job descriptions. They are either pages long, crammed with endless responsibilities and activities, that you rarely actually do.

On the other hand, job descriptions are far too sparse and focus on a specific number of responsibilities without reflecting the broad range of tasks and activities the job actually entails. Either way they often don’t reflect the reality of the job role.

We believe: Job descriptions should be carefully curated to give a representative picture of what a job entails.

4) Exploring and explaining why the job exists

Job descriptions often focus on tasks, competencies or responsibilities without clearly defining and explaining why the job exists in the first place. Jobs exist to provide value and a service to others yet this is infrequently captured in the job descriptions. Consequently, many job holders fail to understand or focus on the core purpose and value of the job. 

We believe: Job descriptions should clearly state and explain the purpose of the role and the value it creates to others.

5) Costly to create

A survey looking into job descriptions uncovered that more than 50% of respondents found that it takes 2 or more hours to write a job description. 

In terms of pounds and pence this would be a minimum of £32.00 per document assuming that only one person was involved in checking the document and they earned close to the average wage in the UK.

If you had 500 people working for your organisation that would be a cost of 1,000 people hours and £16,000. This figure ignores the fact that in many organisations job descriptions need to be reviewed and checked by senior and HR managers or the cost would be much more than this.

The reality is that job descriptions don’t provide a return on investment for organisations in terms of the value they create compared to time taken to write and produce them.

We believe: Our time at work is precious and job descriptions and role profiles should be able to be produced in a time efficient and cost effective way.

Doing things differently

In short we don’t think many job descriptions are worth the time and effort . We believe that job descriptions should:

• Constantly evolve and and change in the way that our work does.

• Give readers a true sense and representation of what it feels like to do a particular job.

• Be carefully curated to give a representative picture of what a job entails.

• Clearly state and explain the purpose of the role and the value it creates to others.

• Should be produced in a time efficient and cost effective way.

Creating a job canvas

At Tailored Thinking we think that job descriptions are boring, outdated and out of touch. 

We’ve created a job canvas which is easy to complete and update and captures the core elements and essence of a job rather than an infinite list of duties and tasks. 

We’re currently testing the canvas with a few selected clients. If you want to be at the front of the queue to find out more, then you can enquire here.