Rob Baker

Work is broken. If our work was an item of clothing, for most of us, it would be a straight-jacket. Or at best an ill-fitting suit. Modern working practices are failing us – constraining rather than amplifying our diverse skills, strengths, passions and interests. No wonder globally over 90% of us aren’t engaged, excited and energised about our jobs.

What if we encouraged people to customise their work the way a tailor would the final fit of a semi-tailored suit? What if we started to shape work around people rather than expecting people to constantly contort themselves around their jobs? What if we took a more personalised approach?

As a society and in business, people embrace opportunities for the personalisation of products and services. We enjoy and value having our own individual style, beliefs and passions reflected in what we do and how we do it.

So how can we bring this personal touch to our work? The answer lies in Job Crafting.

Job Crafting encourages us to explore how we act, interact and think about our tasks, thoughts and relationships and to redesign and personalise aspects of our work in ways that foster engagement, job satisfaction, resilience and thriving. Job Crafting is a research-informed and evidence-based approach and the research into this practice is compelling. Job Crafting boosts innovation and agility, nurtures health and wellbeing andamplifies meaning, purpose and productivity.

The practice of Job Crafting is a growing field of academic study, but to date the concept and approach is largely untapped and unknown from an organisational perspective. There have been some early adopters including Google, Logitech, Burts Bees in the US, Wideroe Airlines in Norway and Connect Health, the University of Leeds and Virgin money in the UK.

Our interactive session will provide insights from these organisations and others who have found innovative ways of encouraging a personalised – human-centred – approach to work. It will be filled with practical job crafting strategies, studies and stories, based on the latest science, combined with Rob’s extensive research and applied experience.

The session will share elements of the job crafting case studies and projects that led to Tailored Thinking (the positive psychology, wellbeing and HR consultancy Rob founded in 2017) being named HR Consultancy of the Year by the CIPD in 2020.

Participants will leave the session with ideas to “fix” work with practical tools to explore, experiment with and embed a more personalised approach to work which creates and sustains engagement and exceptional people experiences.