Job crafting intervention for job burnout and work engagement among young construction project management practitioners in China

Purpose Young construction project management practitioners (CPMPs) have unique, complex, and notable occupational mental health problems. However, there were few studies about the intervention for occupational mental health of CPMPs, and traditional intervention modes often failed to achieve significant effects. Therefore, this study aims to propose a new and effective intervention method. Design/methodology/approach Job crafting intervention was used to design an intervention experiment. A total of 72 CPMPs participated in a 10-week randomized controlled trial in China. Descriptive statistics and repeated measures analysis of variance were used to verify the effectiveness of job crafting intervention (JCI) on job crafting behaviors, job burnout, and work engagement with consideration of the impact of time. Findings Results showed that the intervention increased social resources, thus effectively reducing job burnout and promoting work engagement. Time also had a significant impact on cynicism, dedication, and social resources. Practical implications The authors should promote the habit of job crafting in CPMPs. Furthermore, in order to facilitate their job crafting, the authors should increase structural and social resources for them, and the authors can also encourage them to undertake challenging demands to increase their self-efficacy and the sense of achievement. Originality/value The authors bring into light a new psychological intervention approach among CPMPs, which integrates the advantages of the guidance in traditional organized intervention methods and the proactivity in individual spontaneous job crafting. The authors verify the efficacy of the JCI among CPMPs and help propose countermeasures and suggestions to improve the occupational mental health of CPMPs.