Job crafting profiles and work engagement: A person-centered approach

Research on job crafting has thus far focused on how distinct behaviors (i.e., seeking increase in (structural and social) job resources and challenging job demands, and decrease in hindering job demands) relate to employee well-being. However, job crafting behaviors are not necessarily mutually exclusive and can be deployed simultaneously, creating unique associations with job-related well-being, a phenomenon that has remained unexamined in job crafting research. This study extends the job crafting research by examining whether discernable profiles can be identified based on scores on four job crafting behaviors, and if so, whether such profiles differ in relation to work engagement. Study participants were Finnish rehabilitation workers (n = 131) who completed day-level measures of job crafting and work engagement twice. At both measurement times, latent profile analysis yielded two job crafting profiles: 1) ‘Active job crafters’ (94%) and 2) ‘Passive job crafters’ (6%). Latent transition analysis revealed that employees maintained their profile membership over time. Moreover, ‘Active job crafters’ reported higher levels of work engagement than ‘Passive job crafters’ at both measurements. These results indicate that employees actively use multiple job crafting strategies simultaneously, and that this facilitates day-specific work engagement. The results also suggest that the strategy of decreasing hindering job demands is less detrimental to work engagement when used together with other job crafting strategies. Overall, the results demonstrate the benefits of investigating combinations of job crafting behaviors.