Sustainable work through crafting

Abstract

In today’s knowledge and service economy and with the increasing trend towards multilocational work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, job redesign and self-management approaches (i.e. individuals actively shaping their own jobs) are increasingly important (Grant & Parker, 2009; Sjöblom et al., 2022). In this chapter, therefore, we focus on crafting, by which we mean individuals’ proactive efforts to shape their own working conditions, the boundaries of their job, and also nonwork life domains to create healthy, motivating, and satisfying circumstances in which to live and work (de Bloom et al., 2020). The literature on crafting has its origins in job crafting, which refers to the proactive customization of working conditions that enables employees to adjust their work environment to suit their own preferences and abilities (Tims et al., 2012; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). However, since the theory and concept of crafting have recently evolved and broadened, our focus will be on these latest developments – namely, the integrative needs model of crafting (de Bloom et al., 2020) and on two new crafting constructs: work–nonwork balance and off-job crafting.