Crafting for oneself while considering others: how the relational design of work shapes job crafting

Job crafting is a concept of increasing interest to human resource management (HRM), as it involves employees re-designing their jobs to maintain and increase their person-job fit. Job crafting is seen as an individual's self-focused approach to his/her work, and the way other people influence and are influenced by these behaviors is understudied. We built on the relational work design theory and used focus group interviews of 44 employees and thematic analysis method to explore how job crafting is shaped by interactions with others at work. Our results show that relational work characteristics, namely contact with other people and impact on other people, shape the way jobs are crafted. Further, we find that jobs are crafted by mobilizing the relational work design and adapting to it. Based on these findings, we present a typology of four general job crafting strategies. We advance theory on how individuals craft their jobs to consider not just themselves but also others. This study has implications for job crafting theory and HRM by highlighting how the relational properties of work shape the way employees craft their jobs.