Job crafting motives and strategies to increase work-related well-being among healthcare employees

BackgroundEmployees often change and adapt work to increase the fit of their own goals and needs, and resources and demands in work. Crafting a job in this manner can promote well-being at work.ObjectiveThis study aims to explore different job crafting strategies that healthcare employees engage in to increase their perceived well-being at work and the motives behind these strategies.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 healthcare employees, including one dental nurse, assistant and registered nurses, and occupational therapists. Interview data was analysed thematically.ResultsThe informants in this study all engaged in crafting strategies that were derived from more than one of four emerging motives. These motives were to craft for their development, for a common good, for meaningfulness in work, and to craft for manageability. Crafting strategies within the different motives included adding tasks beyond the clinical work, developing relations for collaboration with colleagues from other healthcare professions, involving patients when planning their daily work, and developing templates to optimize work. One other strategy to make work more manageable was to choose, at times, to craft less or to not craft at all.ConclusionsJob crafters engaged in different crafting strategies, derived from different motives, which seem to change depending on their current work-, and personal situation. Even though an inner drive for development seemed to overcome constraining working contexts, it is suggested that health-promoting job crafting should be organized through the promotion of ideas and employee-driven initiatives, as well as through cross-professional collaboration.