Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

© 2019 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1–16

ISSN: 1076-8998 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000175

Align Your Job With Yourself: The Relationship Between a Job Crafting
Intervention and Work Engagement, and the Role of Workload

Evy Kuijpers Dorien T.A.M. Kooij

Vrije Universiteit Brussel Tilburg University

Marianne van Woerkom

Tilburg University and Erasmus University Rotterdam
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article describes a quasi-experiment that evaluates the relationship between a job crafting intervention
and work engagement. More particularly, we focused on three different types of job crafting: crafting
towards strengths, crafting towards interests, and crafting towards development. Building on the con-
servation of resources theory, we hypothesized that participating in a job crafting intervention will be
positively associated with job crafting, which in turn will promote work engagement. Additionally, based
on the activation theory, we hypothesized that employees with a relatively high workload will benefit
more from a job crafting intervention compared with employees with a relatively low workload. In all,
99 employees from a Dutch health care organization participated in our study (n ⫽ 45 in the treatment
group; n ⫽ 54 in the control group). Results indicated that there was no association between the
intervention and job crafting behaviors. However, the job crafting intervention was found to be positively
related to interests crafting for workers with a relatively high workload, which in turn was associated with
an increase in dedication and absorption. Additionally, we found that job crafting towards strengths was
associated with all aspects of work engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption), whereas job crafting
towards interests was related to dedication and absorption, and crafting towards development was not
associated with work engagement. We conclude that a job crafting intervention can be an effective tool
for enhancing work engagement for employees with a high workload.

Keywords: job crafting, job crafting intervention, work engagement, workload, quasi-experimental study

Work engagement is an important indicator of employee health
and well-being (Mäkikangas, Kinnunen, Feldt, & Schaufeli, 2016)
and is associated with several organizational outcomes (Bakker &
This article was published Online First December 12, 2019.
Evy Kuijpers, Department of Work and Organizational Psychology,
Vrije Universiteit Brussel; Dorien T.A.M. Kooij, Department of Human
Resource Studies, Tilburg University; Marianne van Woerkom, Depart-
ment of Human Resource Studies, Tilburg University, and Center of
Excellence for Positive Organizational Psychology, Erasmus University
Rotterdam.
We thank Thijs Hamelink and Bernadet Mommers for leading the
workshops and for help with collecting the data. This research was funded
by a VENI Grant (016.145.218) of the Dutch Organization for Scientific
Research.
This study was presented at the 35th International Academic Conference
in Barcelona (International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences,
2018), at the 13th European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology
conference in Lisbon (Symposium Workplace Interventions: Implications
for Worker Health and Well-being, 2018), and at the 31st International
Convention of Psychological Sciences in Washington (Symposium Work,
Life, and Balance: Perspectives from Across the Life-Span).
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Evy
Kuijpers, Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vrije
Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. E-mail:
Evy.Kuijpers@vub.be
1
Albrecht, 2018). Engaged employees are more likely to stay in the
organization, which reduces costs related to hiring and retention in
highly competitive talent markets (Amabile & Kramer, 2011;
Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010), whereas a lack of work engage-
ment has been associated with increased absenteeism, presentee-
ism, and lower levels of innovation, performance, and productivity
(Purcell, 2014). One way to increase employee engagement is
through job crafting behavior (Bakker, 2010; Petrou, Demerouti,
Peeters, Schaufeli, & Hetland, 2012; Tims, Bakker, Derks, & Van
Rhenen, 2013). Job crafting refers to the self-initiated changes that
individuals make in the task boundaries of their work that are
aimed at improving person–job fit (Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2012;
Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). By aligning their jobs with their
own preferences, motives, and passions, employees may increase
their work engagement (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012). Contem-
porary job crafting research is dominated by two perspectives. The
first perspective relies on the original theory from Wrzesniewski
and Dutton (2001) and distinguishes three types of crafting: task
crafting, relational crafting, and cognitive crafting. The second
perspective stems from Tims et al. (2012) and builds on the job
demands–resources model, conceptualizing job crafting as reduc-
ing hindering job demands and increasing challenging job de-
mands and job resources. Even though numerous studies have been
published using these perspectives and recent studies (i.e., Bruning
& Campion, 2018; Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019; Zhang &
 2 KUIJPERS, KOOIJ, AND VAN WOERKOM
Parker, 2019) aim to integrate the two perspectives by focusing on
approach or promotion crafting versus avoidance or prevention
crafting, the exclusive focus on ways of crafting (i.e., task, rela-
tional or cognitive) or specific job characteristics that are crafted
(i.e., demands or resources) has led to a neglect of job crafting
behaviors that are particularly aimed at adapting job tasks so that
they match the personal resources of the employee (Kooij, van
Woerkom, Wilkenloh, Dorenbosch, & Denissen, 2017). Because
job crafting has been proposed as a way to maximize the fit
between the job and the employee, an isolated focus on the job or
on the way of crafting without considering important characteris-
tics of the individual neglects a major part of its foundation. To
incorporate the employee in job crafting conceptualizations, we
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argue that we need to understand how people craft their jobs to
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adapt it to their personal resources. This is in line with Wrzesni-
ewski, LoBuglio, Dutton, and Berg (2013) and Berg, Dutton, and
Wrzesniewski (2013) who have urged researchers to incorporate
employees’ motives, strengths, and passions in the job crafting
concept. To answer this call, Kooij et al. (2017) have conceptual-
ized job crafting in terms of adjusting the job to personal strengths
and interests. We build on and contribute to this study by including
one other personal resource that the job should be adjusted to and
that is the growth potential of the employee. Therefore, we distin-
guish not only crafting towards strengths and interests but also
developmental crafting.
Building on the conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hob-
foll, 1989), which predicts that individuals are focused on acquir-
ing resources and invest their resources in gaining additional
resources, we examine whether a job crafting intervention is re-
lated to an increase in job crafting behaviors, which in turn can be
related to an increase in work engagement. In addition, based on
COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) and Karasek and Theorell’s (1990)
activation theory, we expect that the job crafting intervention is
especially beneficial for employees who experience a high work-
load. Both theories explain how workers are triggered to engage in
specific action. According to COR theory, resources are particu-
larly salient in the context of resource loss (Hobfoll & Schumm,
2002). Therefore, the benefits of specific resources (e.g., the par-
ticipation in a job crafting intervention) become particularly evi-
dent when employees are in need of them (e.g., when they expe-
rience a high workload), making it more likely that those
employees are actively transferring what they learned in the work-
shop to the work floor. Moreover, according to the activation
theory, high workload triggers arousal and an activated state of the
individual employee, which will lead to the development of new
behavioral patterns. The job crafting intervention may function as
an instrument to channel this high arousal by stimulating employ-
ees to align their job more closely to their personal resources. For
this reason, it can be expected that the transfer of training is higher
for employees who face a high workload because these employees
will be more active in applying what they learned in the job
crafting intervention. The key contribution of this study is that we
extend prior research on job crafting by investigating three types of
job crafting that are aimed at adapting the job to the personal
resources of the employee (Kooij et al., 2017; Wrzesniewski et al.,
2013). Even though job crafting has recently attracted a lot of
interest from researchers, previous studies have predominantly
focused on the job itself, without explicitly paying attention to the
individual and the alignment of the job with their (potential)
personal resources (Kooij et al., 2017), as was originally intended
by Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001). We will therefore build on
the job crafting framework that was recently introduced by Kooij
et al. (2017) and which is still understudied. More particularly, in
line with the job crafting framework presented by Kooij et al.
(2017), we introduce developmental crafting (next to strengths and
interests crafting) as a new type of job crafting aimed at aligning
the job to the personal resources of the worker. Existing concep-
tualizations of job crafting include dimensions that are seemingly
related to developmental crafting such as increasing structural
resources (Tims et al., 2012) and the adoption dimension of the
Bruning and Campion’s (2018) framework. However, these di-
mensions do not make the link to the developmental needs or
growth potential of the worker. Increasing structural resources
(Tims et al., 2012) is a much broader construct that also includes
increasing job resources such as variety and autonomy in general
without making the link to the developmental needs of the worker.
Adoption crafting (Bruning & Campion, 2018) refers to the active
and goal-directed use of technology and other sources of knowl-
edge to optimize the work process and is more aimed at doing the
job more efficiently than at realizing one’s potential.
Second, we add to the limited knowledge on the influence that
the work context may have on the effectiveness of a job crafting
intervention by investigating the moderating effect of workload.
Hence, we explore a boundary condition of what may translate job
crafting interventions into effective employee behaviors. As such,
we shed light on the specific circumstances that may influence the
effectiveness of the intervention (Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017).
Third, whereas Kooij et al. (2017) tested the effect of a job crafting
intervention on a very proximal outcome, namely, person–job fit,
we tested the association with a more distal outcome, namely,
work engagement.
The Relationship of a Job Crafting Intervention With
Job Crafting Behaviors
Wrzesniewski et al. (2013) stated that employees try to incor-
porate their motives, strengths, and passions in their job by engag-
ing in job crafting behavior that is aimed at adapting job tasks to
their personal resources. Personal resources are aspects of the self
that are associated with resiliency and refer to individuals’ sense of
their ability to control and influence their environment success-
fully (Hobfoll, Johnson, Ennis, & Jackson, 2003). In line with this
conceptualization, we focus on three dimensions of job crafting:
crafting towards strengths, crafting towards interests, and crafting
towards development.
Job crafting towards strengths refers to the self-initiated changes
that individuals make in the task boundaries of their work to make
better use of their strengths. Personal strengths are the character-
istics of a person that allow them to perform well or at their
personal best (Wood, Linley, Maltby, Kashdan, & Hurling, 2011)
and are therefore important personal resources. An example of
strengths crafting might be a janitor in a hospital who has a
strength in empathy and thus may go out of his way to comfort
patients and visitors.
Job crafting towards interests is aimed at changing the job in
such a way that it matches one’s interests (Kooij et al., 2017).
Interests are powerful personal resources, as they can be viewed as
motivational factors that trigger employees to invest their time and
 ALIGN YOUR JOB WITH YOURSELF
energy in the topic of their interest (Krapp, 1999; Schiefele, 1991).
For example, an ambulatory nurse who has an interest in music
may incorporate music in her plan to activate patients.
Finally, job crafting towards development refers to the initia-
tives that employees take to realize their potential (Frese, Kring,
Soose, & Zempel, 1996; Renn & Fedor, 2001) by creating devel-
opmental opportunities for themselves (Parker, 2000), for instance,
by creating opportunities to apply their unused knowledge and
skills. Employees’ perceived potential for development is an im-
portant personal resource because they can only benefit from the
learning opportunities in everyday work practices if they are aware
of their own potential for development (Doornbos, Bolhuis, &
Simons, 2004; Nieuwenhuis & Van Woerkom, 2007). For in-
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stance, if a nurse sees potential for improving her communication
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skills, she might ask for feedback from a colleague.
To enhance strengths, interests, and development crafting, an
intervention is required that focuses on the active participation of
employees in redesigning their job. A job crafting intervention is
a bottom-up approach that promotes the self-initiative of the em-
ployee in adapting their job to their strengths, interests, and de-
velopmental aspirations (Kooij et al., 2017). Through this inter-
vention, employees learn how to apply different types of job
crafting behaviors in the workplace and how to regulate these
behaviors by directing attention and mobilizing prolonged effort
over time (Burke & Hutchins, 2007). The intervention is expected
to increase job crafting behaviors, because it meets the require-
ments which are suggested by the literature on the effectiveness of
organizational interventions. First, according to Kuoppala, Lam-
minpää, and Husman (2008), interventions should combine cog-
nitive, relational, and behavioral elements. Moreover, interven-
tions should incorporate features that facilitate the transfer of what
is learned during the training to the actual job (Burke & Hutchins,
2007). These features include clear training goals, opportunities
for practice and feedback, and opportunities for peer- and super-
visor support (van Woerkom & Meyers, 2018). Lastly, according
to the transtheoretical model of behavioral change (Prochaska,
DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992), interventions should facilitate
successful progress through different stages of change. In the
precontemplation stage of change, the emphasis is on raising
consciousness. In the preparation stage, participants should focus
on making a commitment. Finally, in the action stage, respondents
need to be encouraged to seek social support to make behavioral
changes. We developed an intervention that meets these require-
ments and thus hypothesize that the job crafting intervention will
have a positive relationship with employees’ job crafting behav-
iors. Therefore, the following hypothesis was formulated:
Hypothesis 1a: Employees participating in the job crafting
intervention develop higher levels of strengths crafting after
the intervention compared with employees in the control
group.
Hypothesis 1b: Employees participating in the job crafting
intervention develop higher levels of interests crafting after
the intervention compared with employees in the control
group.
Hypothesis 1c: Employees participating in the job crafting
intervention develop higher levels of developmental crafting
3
after the intervention compared with employees in the control
group.
The Association Between Job Crafting and Work
Engagement
Work engagement refers to “a positive, fulfilling, work-related
state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and ab-
sorption” (Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002,
p. 74). Vigor is characterized by high levels of energy and mental
resilience while working. Dedication refers to being strongly in-
volved in one’s work and experiencing a sense of significance,
enthusiasm, and challenge. Finally, absorption is characterized by
being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in one’s work.
When being absorbed, time passes quickly and people have diffi-
culties with detaching oneself from work (Schaufeli, Bakker, &
Salanova, 2006). In essence, work engagement captures how
workers experience their work: Engaged employees have an ener-
getic and effective connection with their work activities with
raised motivation (Warr & Inceoglu, 2012). Employees who en-
gage in job crafting behavior proactively try to align their work
tasks to their own strengths, interests, and developmental aspira-
tions (Parker, Bindl, & Strauss, 2010; Tims & Bakker, 2010). By
doing so, they create a challenging and fitting work environment
that fosters the enthusiasm and absorption that are characteristic
for work engagement (Harju, Hakanen, & Schaufeli, 2016). More
specifically, when employees craft their work according to their
strengths, this allows them to perform at their personal best (Rob-
erts, Dutton, Spreitzer, Heaphy, & Quinn, 2005), which brings
about feelings of authenticity and energy (Linley & Harrington,
2006; Wood et al., 2011). Consequently, the use of strengths leads
employees to put more effort in their work (vigor), to take pride
and find inspiration in their work activities (dedication), and to
immerse themselves in their tasks (absorption; van Woerkom,
Oerlemans, & Bakker, 2016). Several studies have provided evi-
dence for a positive relationship between strengths use and work
engagement (Botha & Mostert, 2014; Harzer & Ruch, 2013;
Stander, Mostert, & De Beer, 2014; van Woerkom et al., 2016).
Likewise, interests crafting can enhance work engagement be-
cause it increases the likelihood of experiencing positive attitudes
and intrinsic enjoyment of work. Previous studies indicated that
positive attitudes towards work (i.e., by doing the things you like)
are related to work engagement (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). When
interests are used to organize one’s own work, this can result in a
more internal motivated state (Reeve, 1989), which consequently
can result in elevated levels of work engagement (Thomas, 2009).
Moreover, employees who engage in interests crafting are able to
shape more personally meaningful work (Chalofsky, 2010). What
is identified as meaningful by an individual is often closely tied to
the “self” (Debats, Drost, & Hansen, 1995), and employees who
feel that their work roles are congruent with how they like to see
themselves (i.e., their preferred self) are more willing to fully
engage themselves in their work (Rich, Lepine, & Crawford,
2010). Finally, developmental crafting will be positively associ-
ated with work engagement because it can diminish the stress that
is associated with incompetent task performance (Brouwers &
Tomic, 2000; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001) and helps work-
ers in accomplishing their goals for professional or personal de-
velopment, thereby leading to self-actualization (Nieuwenhuis &
 4 KUIJPERS, KOOIJ, AND VAN WOERKOM
Van Woerkom, 2007). Developmental crafting can be seen as an
autonomous regulation tool to grow and learn from new tasks,
thereby serving the basic human need for growth and development
(Deci & Ryan, 2008). Whereas some theories have proposed that
engaging in self-regulation processes is energy depleting, studies
based on the self-determination theory have shown that only
controlled regulation depletes energy, whereas engaging in auton-
omous regulation can be vitalizing (Ryan & Deci, 2008). Although
exposure to developmental challenges requires energy, it also
triggers positive emotions and active, problem-focused coping
styles that increase the willingness to invest energy in personal
development (Crawford et al., 2010). This is supported by a study
of Crawford et al. (2010) who found that challenging demands
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were positively associated with work engagement. Another study
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indicated that managers who were most eager to develop them-
selves in their jobs were most engaged (Hyvönen, Feldt, Salmela-
Aro, Kinnunen, & Mäkikangas, 2009). On the basis of this liter-
ature review, we formulated the next hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2a: There is a positive association between job
crafting towards strengths and work engagement.
Hypothesis 2b: There is a positive association between job
crafting towards interests and work engagement.
Hypothesis 2c: There is a positive association between job
crafting towards development and work engagement.
We expect that job crafting behaviors fully mediate the association
between the intervention and work engagement, as the intervention
is aimed at stimulating crafting behaviors. Therefore, we propose
that the job crafting intervention has an indirect relationship with
work engagement via job crafting behavior.
Hypothesis 3a: The positive association between the job craft-
ing intervention and work engagement is mediated by job
crafting towards strengths.
Hypothesis 3b: The positive association between the job craft-
ing intervention and work engagement is mediated by job
crafting towards interests.
Hypothesis 3c: The positive association between the job craft-
ing intervention and work engagement is mediated by job
crafting towards development.
The Moderating Role of Workload
The work environment has a considerable impact on the effective-
ness of interventions in organizations (Alvarez, Salas, & Garofano,
2004; Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Holton, Bates, Seyler, & Carvalho,
1997; Tannenbaum & Yukl, 1992). For instance, a study by Albertsen
et al. (2014) exemplifies the challenges of a (quasi-)experimental
design in organizational intervention research, as they found that
the same intervention had completely different outcomes based on
the context and implementation of the intervention. Literature
on the evaluation of interventions therefore stresses that research-
ers should take the context into account (Cox, Taris, & Nielsen,
2010). In addition, the literature on transfer of training also pro-
poses and found that the work environment is an important deter-
minant of training transfer (Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Blume, Ford,
Baldwin, & Huang, 2010). Because workload has a considerable
impact on employees’ perception of their work environment
(Rousseau, Ho, & Greenberg, 2006), it should be considered when
investigating the impact of interventions at work. Workload refers
to the sheer volume of work that is required of an employee
(Spector & Jex, 1998). If employees are confronted with a high
workload, fulfilling the required tasks is more demanding which
might trigger workers into action, especially when a resource in the
form of a job crafting intervention is offered to them (Frese &
Zapf, 1994). This phenomenon can be explained by two theories.
First, the COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) argues that in a context of
resource loss caused by a high workload, resources become more
salient (Hobfoll & Schumm, 2002), as was also supported by
Bakker, Hakanen, Demerouti, and Xanthopoulou (2007) and van
Woerkom, Bakker, and Nishii (2016). This implies that the job
crafting intervention may be a particularly effective resource in
stimulating proactive job crafting behavior among workers who
experience a high workload. Second, Karasek and Theorell’s
(1990) activation theory proposes that high workload leads to
active problem solving (Petrou et al., 2012) and the development
of new behavioral patterns (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). This is
evidenced by research that shows that employees who face a high
workload show more personal initiative (Hornung, Rousseau, Gla-
ser, Angerer, & Weigl, 2010; Ohly & Fritz, 2010) and make more
use of self-leadership strategies, such as self-job redesign or self-
management (Lovelace, Manz, & Alves, 2007). In addition, work-
load can stimulate employees to engage in proactive behavior
(Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009) and goal achievement (Van den Broeck,
De Cuyper, De Witte, & Vansteenkiste, 2010). However, the high
arousal that results from high workload needs to be channeled into
proactive behavior. The job crafting intervention may function as
an instrument to channel this high arousal by stimulating employ-
ees to align their job more closely to their personal resources.
Thus, for employees who perceive a high workload, participating
in a job crafting intervention may be particularly effective.
Building on these theoretical and empirical arguments, we expect
that employees who perceive higher levels of workload will benefit
more from a job crafting intervention in terms of their job crafting
behaviors than employees who perceive lower levels of workload.
Hypothesis 4a: Workload moderates the relationship between
the job crafting intervention and job crafting behaviors to-
wards strengths in such a way that employees with a high
workload show increased levels of job crafting behaviors
compared with employees with lower workload.
Hypothesis 4b: Workload moderates the relationship between
the job crafting intervention and job crafting behaviors to-
wards interests in such a way that employees with a high
workload show increased levels of job crafting behaviors
compared with employees with lower workload.
Hypothesis 4c: Workload moderates the relationship between
the job crafting intervention and job crafting behaviors to-
wards development in such a way that employees with a high
workload show increased levels of job crafting behaviors
compared with employees with lower workload.
Moreover, building on our hypotheses that the job crafting inter-
vention has an indirect relationship with work engagement, we
 ALIGN YOUR JOB WITH YOURSELF 5

propose a moderated mediation effect of workload. Employees
with a high workload are expected to respond more strongly to the
intervention, and their elevated levels of job crafting will in turn be
associated with greater improvements in their work engagement.
Hypothesis 5a: The indirect positive association between a job
crafting intervention and work engagement via job crafting
behaviors towards strengths is stronger for employees who
have a high workload compared with employees with lower
workload.
Hypothesis 5b: The indirect positive association between a job
crafting intervention and work engagement via job crafting
behaviors towards interests is stronger for employees who
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sample consisted of 99 participants (n ⫽ 45 in the treatment group
and n ⫽ 54 in the control group). A total of 78% of the total
participants were female and most of the participants completed
intermediate vocational (40%) or higher professional (48%) edu-
cation. The average age of the participants was 40.7 years (SD ⫽
9.99), which is approximately equal to the average age of the
population in the Netherlands (40.9 years in 2018; Central Bureau
for Statistics, 2019). Their average job tenure was 8.13 years
(SD ⫽ 6.99) and the occupations that were held by the participants
were diverse (e.g., finance and customer service), with the major-
ity working as health care giver (69%). More details of the par-
ticipants are listed in Table 1.
Potential participants were invited via e-mail and the company’s

have a high workload compared with employees with lower intranet. They could register on a voluntary basis to participate in
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workload. the job crafting workshop or to participate in the questionnaire

Hypothesis 5c: The indirect positive association between a job
crafting intervention and work engagement via job crafting
behaviors towards development is stronger for employees who
have a high workload compared with employees with lower
workload.
Method
Participants and Procedure
Participants were employees working for an organization that
provides care for elderly and people with disabilities. The total
only. We used an intervention study with a quasi-experimental
design with 99 participants; 45 employees participated in the
workshop and 54 employees only filled out the questionnaires. The
study took place over a period of 8 weeks. At the start of the study
(Weeks 1 and 2), all participants received an e-mail with the
invitation to fill out the first questionnaire, which contained de-
mographics and the pretest measures of job crafting and work
engagement. Furthermore, the moderator workload was measured
in this pretest. Additionally, in this e-mail participants in the
treatment group were asked to make a homework assignment prior
to the workshop, which was a Reflected Best-Self exercise (Rob-
erts et al., 2005). In this exercise they had to map out their

Table 1
Demographic Characteristics (N ⫽ 99) for Total Group, Subdivided Into Treatment (n ⫽ 45)
and Control (n ⫽ 54) Group

Significance
Characteristics Description Mean/% (two-tailed)

Number of participants
Treatment group 45.5% (N ⫽ 45)
Control group 54.5% (N ⫽ 54)
Gender
Treatment group Male 26.1% (N ⫽ 12) .23
Female 71.1% (N ⫽ 33)
Control group Male 16.4% (N ⫽ 9)
Female 81.8% (N ⫽ 45)
Average age in years
Treatment group 41.49 (SD ⫽ 9.67) .48
Control group 40.06 (SD ⫽ 10.42)
Educational background
Treatment group Secondary School 6.5% (N ⫽ 3) .18
Intermediate vocational 47.8% (N ⫽ 22)
education
Secondary vocational 39.1% (N ⫽ 18)
education (BA)
University (MA) 4.3% (N ⫽ 2)
Control group Secondary school 5.5% (N ⫽ 3)
Intermediate vocational 32.7% (N ⫽ 18)
education
Secondary vocational 54.5% (N ⫽ 30)
education (BA)
University (MA) 5.5% (N ⫽ 3)
Average functional tenure
in years
Treatment group 9.11 (SD ⫽ 7.14) .25
Control group 7.38 (SD ⫽ 6.81)
Note. BA ⫽ Bachelor of Arts; MA⫽ Master of Arts.
 6 KUIJPERS, KOOIJ, AND VAN WOERKOM
strengths, interests, and biggest achievements, and had to ask 10
people in their immediate environment (e.g., spouses, friends,
colleagues) to complete the questionnaire as well.
In Week 3, the participants of the treatment group participated
in a 2-hr job crafting workshop, led by professional trainers work-
ing in the company. The workshop consisted of several parts. In
the first step, participants had to map their job by identifying all the
tasks they perform at work. In the second step, participants ex-
plored the dynamic nature of their job by classifying tasks either as
“traditional tasks,” which were already part of the job when they
started working in this position, or “new tasks,” which were added
later on; they also indicated whether the time they spent on each
task had decreased or increased over time. In the third step, the
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participants reviewed the homework assignment in which they
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identified their strengths, interests, and biggest achievements.
They had to match the strengths and interests to the tasks they
perform at their job by indicating in which of their work tasks their
strengths and interests were best reflected. In the fourth and final
step, participants had to choose three work tasks that they would
like to craft to align their job better with their personal strengths
and interests or development needs. Subsequently, participants
were asked to formulate one short-term and concrete job crafting
goal and to come up with a plan to accomplish this goal within
three weeks. Three weeks after the workshop, in Week 6, a second
1-hr workshop took place where the participants discussed with the
trainer the accomplishment of their goals and ways to cope with
setbacks. Lastly, in Week 7 and 8, the posttest questionnaire was
sent to both the control and treatment group to track changes in job
crafting behaviors and work engagement.
The intervention met the requirements that are suggested by the
literature on the effectiveness of organizational interventions.
First, to combine cognitive, relational, and behavioral elements
(Kuoppala et al., 2008), employees were instructed to map out
their strengths, interests, and biggest achievements and subse-
quently had to identify all the tasks they performed at work (i.e.,
cognitive element). In addition, a professional trainer of the com-
pany guided the participants through the intervention (i.e., rela-
tional element), and employees had to set short-term goals to
adjust their work task to ensure behavioral change (i.e., behavioral
element). Moreover, the intervention facilitated the transfer of
what is learned during the training to the actual job (Burke &
Hutchins, 2007), by stimulating participants to develop clear job
crafting goals, by providing opportunities for practice between the
first and the second workshop, and by providing opportunities for
feedback and peer support in the second workshop. Lastly, to meet
the requirements of the transtheoretical Model of behavioral
change (Prochaska et al., 1992), we raised the awareness of em-
ployees by letting them think about how their job has changed in
recent years and by letting them map the (mis)fit between their
strengths, interests, and developmental aspirations and their job
(precontemplation stage). Moreover, participants had to set their
own job crafting goals (preparation stage), and the second work-
shop ensured that the employees could exchange their experiences
and support each other (action stage).
Kooij et al. (2017) conducted a similar job crafting intervention
to stimulate job crafting behaviors. However, they found that this
intervention only increased strengths crafting among older em-
ployees and actually decreased strengths crafting among younger
workers. The authors explain this effect by stating that younger
employees might have less insights in their identity, strengths, and
interests (Feldman, 2003) and have less of a tendency to create
environments that fit these personal resources (Caspi, Roberts, &
Shiner, 2005). Therefore, to make sure that our job crafting inter-
vention is suitable for employees of all ages, we adapted the
intervention that was developed by Kooij et al. (2017) by making
three important changes in the content and the delivery of the
workshop. First, we added a homework assignment prior to the
workshop by instructing participants to make a reflected best-self-
exercise (Roberts et al., 2005) based on the feedback of people in
their environment to identify their strengths, interests, and biggest
achievements. Second, instead of a workshop in which participants
made use of an online tool and which was facilitated by research
assistants, we used a more traditional face to face workshop that
was facilitated by a professional trainer. Third, instead of follow-
ing up on the progress of participants by a phone call from the
workshop leader, we scheduled a second workshop to discuss the
accomplishment of goals and setbacks.
Measures
Job crafting. Job crafting was measured with a nine-item
scale. We build on the measure of Kooij et al. (2017) and devel-
oped a scale capturing crafting towards strengths (JC-Strengths),
crafting towards interests (JC-Interests) and crafting towards de-
velopment (JC-Development), with three items for every scale.
The items were scored on a 7-point frequency scale (ranging from
1 ⫽ never to 7 ⫽ very often). A confirmatory factor analysis
showed that the fit of the three-factor model was acceptable (T1 ⫽
time-point 1, T2 ⫽ time-point 2): T1: ␹2(24) ⫽ 43.92, comparative
fit index (CFI) ⫽ .93, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) ⫽ .90, standard-
ized root mean square residual (SRMR) ⫽ .60; T2: ␹2(24) ⫽
47.70, CFI ⫽ .94, TLI ⫽ .91, SRMR ⫽ .051. Moreover, the
reliabilities of the measures for JC-Strengths (T1: ␣ ⫽ .69; T2:
␣ ⫽ .79), JC-Interests (T1: ␣ ⫽ .74; T2: ␣ ⫽ .82), and JC-
Development (T1: ␣ ⫽ .78; T2: ␣ ⫽ .77) were acceptable. Items
and factor loadings of the three-factor model are displayed in
Table 2.
Work engagement. Work engagement was measured with
the nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale developed by
Schaufeli and Bakker (2003). Response categories were rated by a
7-point frequency scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (daily). Ac-
cording to Schaufeli and Bakker (2003) work engagement consists
of three factors, namely, Dedication, Vigor, and Absorption. An
example question of the Dedication scale is “I am enthusiastic
about my job,” an example question of the Vigor scale is “When
I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work,” and an example
question of the Absorption scale is “I am immersed in my work.”
Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the fit of the three-factor
model was acceptable: T1: ␹2(17) ⫽ 44.00, CFI ⫽ .93, TLI ⫽ .90,
SRMR ⫽ .06; T2: ␹2(17) ⫽ 82.83, CFI ⫽ .89, TLI ⫽ .84,
1
The fit was significantly better than a one-factor model: T1: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽
25.62, p ⬍ .001; T2: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 5.27, p ⫽ .020, and all possible combina-
tions of a two-factor model: Alternative 1, JC-development ⫹ JC-strengths
vs. JC-interests, T1: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 24.1, p ⬍ .01; T2: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 4.1, p ⫽ .04,
Alternative 2, JC-development ⫹ JC-interests vs. JC-strengths, T1:
⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 15.1, p ⬍ .01; T2: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 5.1, p ⫽ .02, Alternative 3,
JC-interests ⫹ JC-strengths vs. JC-development, T1: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 25.1, p ⬍
.01; T2: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 5.3, p ⫽ .02).
 ALIGN YOUR JOB WITH YOURSELF 7

Table 2
Confirmatory Factor Analyses Factor Loadings for Job Crafting

Items JC-strengths T1 JC-interests T1 JC-develop T1 JC-strengths T2 JC-interests T2 JC-develop T2

1. I change my job to use my current knowledge and

capacities to the fullest. .607 .698
2. I make sure that I take on tasks that I am good at. .700 .786
3. In my work tasks, I try to take advantage of my
strengths as much as possible. .673 .758
4. I make sure that I take on tasks that I like. .752 .740
5. I actively look for tasks that match my own
interests. .733 .866
6. I organize my work in such a way that I can do
what I find interesting. .602 .743
7. I look for opportunities to use different current
skills in my work. .720 .645
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8. I look for tasks through which I can develop

myself. .711 .766
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9. I look for tasks that activate unused knowledge

and skills. .757 .748

SRMR ⫽ .07.2 The reliabilities of the measures for dedication (T1:
␣ ⫽ .91; T2: ␣ ⫽ .95), vigor (T1: ␣ ⫽ .82; T2: ␣ ⫽ .92), and
absorption (T1: ␣ ⫽ .81; T2: ␣ ⫽ .77) were good.
Workload. Workload was measured with the four-item Ques-
tionnaire on the Experience and Assessment of Work (VBBA
scale; van Veldhoven, 1996), using frequency anchors with re-
sponse categories ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (always). This scale
measured the experienced pace and amount of work. An example
item is “Do you have to work extra hard to finish something?” The
scale had a Cronbach’s ␣ of .80.
Analyses
First, we checked for pre-intervention differences between the
treatment and control group on eight variables by means of a
one-way analysis of variance (see Table 3). This test indicated that
there were no significant differences on workload, F(1, 97) ⫽ .12,
p ⫽ .732, JC-strengths, F(1, 97) ⬍ .01, p ⫽ .961, JC-interests, F(1,
97) ⫽ .04, p ⫽ .839, JC-development, F(1, 97) ⫽ .02, p ⫽ .899,
and vigor, F(1, 97) ⫽ 1.88, p ⫽ .174, dedication, F(1, 97) ⫽ 1.21,
p ⫽ .273, and absorption, F(1, 97) ⫽ 2.05, p ⫽ .155. Moreover,
also gender, F(1, 97) ⫽ 1.46, p ⫽ .230, age, F(1, 97) ⫽ .50, p ⫽
.480, education, F(1, 97) ⫽ 1.85, p ⫽ .176, job tenure, F(1, 97) ⫽
.84, p ⫽ .363, and proactive personality, F(1, 97) ⫽ .13, p ⫽ .719,
did not differ significantly between the treatment and control
group. Therefore, in our analyses we only controlled for job
crafting behaviors at Time 1 and work engagement at Time 1.
Moreover, to check for common method bias regarding the rela-
tionship between job crafting and work engagement, we conducted
a Harman’s one-factor test including the items of both job crafting
and work engagement and found that a single factor measurement
model did not fit the data well: T1: ␹2 ⫽ 530.611, df ⫽ 135, CFI ⫽
.552, TLI ⫽ .492, root mean square error of approximation ⫽ .172;
T2: ␹2 ⫽ 689.677, df ⫽ 135, CFI ⫽ .558, TLI ⫽ .500, root mean
square error of approximation ⫽ .216. All analyses were con-
ducted with IBM SPSS statistics (Version 22). We conducted
several separate regression analyses to assess the relationship
between the job crafting intervention (dummy-coded) and job
crafting behaviors (Hypothesis 1), and the relationship between the
job crafting behaviors, and vigor, dedication, and absorption (Hy-
pothesis 2). Subsequently, to test the mediation effect of the
intervention on work engagement through job crafting behaviors
(Hypothesis 3), we conducted a mediation analysis using boot-
strapping (Model 4 in PROCESS). PROCESS is a statistical mod-
eling package for SPSS developed by Hayes (2013) that can be
used for estimating mediation and moderated mediation effects.
We constructed a 95% bootstrap confidence interval with 5,000
bootstrap samples, calculating the derived estimates repeatedly.
Therefore, the confidence interval gives a range of plausible values
for the parameter estimate (Shrout & Bolger, 2002). Further-
more, to test the possible moderation effect of workload on the
relationship between the intervention and job crafting behaviors
(Hypothesis 4), we conducted moderation analyses (Model 1 in
PROCESS). Finally, we tested moderated mediation effect of the
intervention on work engagement with workload as a moderator
(Hypothesis 5) with PROCESS (Model 7).
Results
Results revealed that there were no significant correlations be-
tween the condition (0 ⫽ control group, 1 ⫽ intervention group)
and job crafting behaviors at T2 (JC-strengths, r ⫽ ⫺.066, p ⫽
.540; JC-interests, r ⫽ 136, p ⫽ .208; and JC-development, r ⫽
.068, p ⫽ .530). There were also no significant correlations be-
tween the condition and work engagement at T2 (vigor, r ⫽ .136,
p ⫽ .206; dedication, r ⫽ .157, p ⫽ .144; absorption, r ⫽ .097,
p ⫽ .370). JC-strengths at T2 was significantly correlated with
vigor, r ⫽ .215, p ⫽ .045, dedication, r ⫽ .249, p ⫽ .019, and
absorption, r ⫽ .227, p ⫽ .033, at T2. JC-interests at T2 was
significantly correlated with vigor, r ⫽ .266, p ⫽ .012, but not with
dedication, r ⫽ .193, p ⫽ .071, and absorption, r ⫽ .202, p ⫽ .059,
at T2. Developmental crafting was not related to vigor, r ⫽ .270,
p ⫽ .058, dedication, r ⫽ .251, p ⫽ .078, or absorption, r ⫽ .215,
p ⫽ .133, at T2. Additionally, workload was significantly corre-
lated with vigor at T1, r ⫽ ⫺.257, p ⫽ .010, but not with vigor at
T2, r ⫽ ⫺.144, p ⫽ .185. This is displayed in Table 4. Table 5
shows the results of the regression analyses to test Hypothesis 1.
The relationship of the intervention with JC-strengths
2
The fit was significantly better than the one-factor model: T1:
⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 63.61, p ⬍ .001; T2: ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 107.50, p ⬍ .001.
 8 KUIJPERS, KOOIJ, AND VAN WOERKOM

Table 3 T2 (B ⫽ .35 p ⫽ .018) and absorption T2 (B ⫽ .49 p ⫽ .005),

One-Way ANOVA to Check for Pre-intervention Differences in but not with vigor T2 (B ⫽ .28 p ⫽ .082), thereby providing
Focal Variables partial support for Hypothesis 2b. Additionally, JC-develop T2
was not significantly related to absorption (B ⫽ .30 p ⫽ .085),
Variables of Sums of Mean
interest squares df square F p vigor (B ⫽ .17 p ⫽ .318), and dedication (B ⫽ .22 p ⫽ .148)
at Time 2. Therefore, Hypothesis 2c was not supported. Hy-
Workload pothesis 3 predicted that the positive relationship of participa-
Between .039 1 .039 .118 .732
Within 31.972 97 .330
tion in the job crafting intervention with work engagement
JC-strengths would be mediated by job crafting behaviors. Because the
Between .001 1 .001 .002 .961 intervention did not increase JC behaviors, this hypothesis was
Within 38.109 97 .393 not supported. Table 7 reports the results of the moderation
JC-interests
Between .023 1 .023 .041 .839 analyses. As can be seen from this table, workload was a
Within 54.652 97 .563 significant moderator of the relationship between the interven-
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JC-develop tion and JC-interests (B ⫽ .52, p ⬍ .05), but not of the

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Between .008 1 .008 .016 .899 relationship between the intervention and JC-strengths (B ⫽
Within 50.216 97 .518
Vigor .48, p ⫽ .075), and JC-develop (B ⫽ .40, p ⫽ .125). Simple
Between 1.697 1 1.697 1.877 .174 slope analysis indicated that the intervention had a positive
Within 87.737 97 .905 association with JC-interests for workers with a high workload
Dedication (1 SD above mean age; B ⫽ .52, p ⬍ .05), but not for workers
Between 1.379 1 1.379 1.214 .273
Within 110.237 97 1.136 with a low workload (1 SD below mean age: B ⫽ ⫺.07, p ⫽
Absorption .733). This is displayed in Figure 1. Therefore, only Hypothesis
Between 2.637 1 2.637 2.052 .155 4b was supported.
Within 124.686 97 1.285 Lastly, Hypothesis 5 stated that the indirect relationship of the
Proactive personality
Between .101 1 .101 .130 .719 intervention on work engagement (dedication, vigor, and absorp-
Within 75.581 97 .779 tion) via job crafting behaviors (strengths, interests, and develop-
ment) would be moderated by workload (moderated mediation).
Note. ANOVA ⫽ analysis of variance.
Results in Tables 8 and 9 show the moderated mediation analysis
for interests crafting. These analyses reveal that the indirect rela-
(B ⫽ ⫺.03, p ⫽ .872), JC-interests (B ⫽ .26, p ⫽ .105), and tionship of the intervention on dedication and absorption via
JC-development (B ⫽ .19, p ⫽ .253) at T2 was not significant, interests crafting was significantly moderated by workload. That
so these findings do not support Hypothesis 1. Hypothesis 2 is, the indirect relationship was significantly positive (dedication,
predicted a positive association between the different types of B ⫽ .18, SE ⫽ .14, 95% confidence interval [CI; .001, .575];
job crafting behaviors on the one hand and work engagement on absorption, B ⫽ .25, SE ⫽ .16, 95% CI [.018, .673]) for employees
the other hand. As displayed in Table 6, there was a significant with a high workload, but not significant for employees with a
positive association between JC-strengths T2 and vigor (B ⫽ moderate to low workload (dedication, B ⫽ ⫺.02, SE ⫽ .09, 95%
.35, p ⫽ .027), dedication (B ⫽ .39, p ⫽ .006), and absorption CI [⫺.282, .111]; absorption, B ⫽ ⫺.03, SE ⫽ .12, 95% CI
at T2 (B ⫽ .47, p ⫽ .002), providing full support for Hypothesis [⫺.327, .150]). Therefore, Hypothesis 5b was partly supported,
2a. JC-interests T2 was significantly associated with dedication whereas Hypothesis 5a and 5c were not supported.

Table 4
Means, Standard Deviations, and Pearson Correlations Between the Study Variables

Variables of interest M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1. Intervention .46 .50

2. Workload 2.44 .57 .035
3. JC strengths T1 3.03 .62 .005 .135
4. JC interests T1 3.05 .75 .021 ⫺.038 .528ⴱⴱ
5. JC develop T1 2.80 .72 .013 .050 .652ⴱⴱ .479ⴱⴱ
6. JC strengths T2 3.15 .79 ⫺.066 .066 .538ⴱⴱ .425ⴱⴱ .321ⴱⴱ
7. JC interests T2 3.15 .83 .136 ⫺.101 .402ⴱⴱ .594ⴱⴱ .210 .746ⴱⴱ
8. JC develop T2 2.86 .73 .068 .045 .450ⴱⴱ .490ⴱⴱ .449ⴱⴱ .717ⴱⴱ .735ⴱⴱ
9. Vigor T1 5.66 .96 .138 ⫺.257ⴱ .195 .069 .057 .149 .066 .176
10. Dedication T1 5.62 1.07 .111 ⫺.051 .183 .024 .070 .074 ⫺.026 .091 .677ⴱⴱ
11. Absorption T1 5.07 1.14 .144 ⫺.098 .191 .045 .158 .022 ⫺.039 .131 .657ⴱⴱ .735ⴱⴱ
12. Vigor T2 5.53 1.27 .136 ⫺.144 .033 .174 .061 .215ⴱ .266ⴱ .270 .644ⴱⴱ .420ⴱⴱ .406ⴱⴱ
13. Dedication T2 5.58 1.24 .157 .016 .145 .098 .148 .249ⴱ .193 .251 .571ⴱⴱ .705ⴱⴱ .587ⴱⴱ .754ⴱⴱ
14. Absorption T2 5.06 1.34 .097 ⫺.052 .069 .057 .166 .227ⴱ .202 .215 .558ⴱⴱ .601ⴱⴱ .625ⴱⴱ .742ⴱⴱ .832ⴱⴱ
Note. Intervention (0 ⫽ no intervention, 1 ⫽ intervention). JC ⫽ job crafting; T1 ⫽ Time 1; T2 ⫽ Time 2.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.
 ALIGN YOUR JOB WITH YOURSELF 9

Table 5
Regression Analyses Predicting Job Crafting

DV: JC-strengths T2 DV: JC-interests T2 DV: JC-develop T2

IV B SE ␤ B SE ␤ B SE ␤

Intervention ⫺.027 .148 ⫺.017 .255 .144 .154 .190 .133 .129
JC-strengths T1 .593ⴱⴱ .168 .438ⴱⴱ
ⴱⴱⴱ ⴱⴱⴱ
JC-interests T1 .593 .113 .533
JC-develop T1 .291ⴱ .125 .258ⴱ
F(df) 9.48 (4, 81) 13.13 (4, 81) 11.320 (2,83)
R2 .319 .393 .214
Note. Intervention (0 ⫽ no intervention, 1 ⫽ intervention). IV ⫽ independent variable; DV ⫽ dependent variable; JC ⫽ job crafting; T1 ⫽ Time 1; T2 ⫽
Time 2.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. ⴱⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001.
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Discussion aspects of work engagement. This is crucial because work engage-

This article describes a quasi-experimental intervention study ment is a critical indicator of employee health and well-being
that evaluates the relationship between a job crafting intervention, (Laschinger & Finegan, 2005). Today’s work organizations re-
job crafting behavior, and vigor, dedication, and absorption as quire workers to take more responsibility for their own well-being,

Table 6
Regression Analyses Predicting Vigor, Dedication, and Absorption

IV: JC-strengths IV: JC-interests IV: JC-develop

B SE ␤ B SE ␤ B SE ␤

DV: Vigor T2
Intervention .18 .21 .07 .16 .21 .06 .19 .22 .07
JC-strength T1 ⫺.42 .21 ⫺.19
JC-interests T1 .06 .18 .04
JC-develop T1 .04 .19 .02
ⴱ ⴱ
JC-strengths T2 .35 .16 .22
JC-interests T2 .28 .16 .18
JC-develop T2 .18 .17 .10
Vigor T1 .88ⴱⴱ .12 .64ⴱⴱ .86ⴱⴱ .11 .63ⴱⴱ .85ⴱⴱ .12 .62ⴱⴱ
F(df) 17.26 (4, 81) 17.42 (4, 81) 15.48 (4,81)
R2 .46 .46 .43

DV: Dedication T2
Intervention .27 .19 .11 .18 .19 .07 .24 .19 .10
JC-strength T1 ⫺.19 .19 ⫺.09
JC-interests T1 ⫺.10 .16 ⫺.06
JC-develop T1 .10 .17 .05
JC-strength T2 .39ⴱⴱ .14 .25ⴱⴱ
JC-interests T2 .35ⴱ .14 .23ⴱ
JC-develop T2 .25 .15 .15
Dedication T1 .81ⴱⴱ .09 .69ⴱⴱ .83ⴱⴱ .09 .71ⴱⴱ .79ⴱⴱ .09 .68ⴱⴱ
F(df) 25.00 (4, 81) 24.41 (4, 81) 23,64 (4, 81)
R2 .55 .55 .54

DV: Absorption T2
Intervention .06 .20 .02 ⫺.07 .23 ⫺.03 .03 .20 .01
JC-strength T1 ⫺.40ⴱ .20 ⫺.19ⴱ
JC-interest T1 ⫺.26 .19 ⫺.14
JC-develop T1 ⫺.06 .17 ⫺.03
ⴱⴱ ⴱⴱ
JC-strength T2 .44 .14 .28
JC-interest T2 .49ⴱⴱ .17 .30ⴱⴱ
JC-develop T2 .28 .15 .16
Absorption T1 .80ⴱⴱ .09 .71ⴱⴱ .75ⴱⴱ .10 .70ⴱⴱ .64ⴱ .09 .68ⴱ
F(df) 24.21 (4, 81) 22.44 (4, 81) 21,25 (4, 81)
R2 .55 .53 .51
Note. Intervention (0 ⫽ no intervention, 1 ⫽ intervention). IV ⫽ independent variable; JC ⫽ job crafting;
DV ⫽ dependent variable; T1 ⫽ Time 1; T2 ⫽ Time 2.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.
 10 KUIJPERS, KOOIJ, AND VAN WOERKOM

Table 7
Results of Moderation Analysis of Workload on JC-Strengths, JC-Interests, and JC-Develop

Model 1 Model 2
Variable B SE t p B SE t p

DV: Crafting towards interests T2

Intervention .23 .15 1.60 .113 ⫺1.02 .64 ⫺1.61 .112
Workload .05 .13 .40 .693 ⫺.14 .16 ⫺.90 .369
JC-interests T1 .67 .10 6.90 .000 .69 .10 7.13 .000
Intervention ⫻ Workload .52 .26 2.02 .047
F(df) 16.35 (3,82) 13.74 (4, 81)
R2 (⌬R2) .37 .40 (.05)
DV: Crafting towards strengths T2
Intervention ⫺.02 .15 ⫺.15 .884 ⫺1.18 .66 ⫺1.79 .078
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Workload ⫺.02 .13 ⫺.16 .870 ⫺.20 .16 ⫺1.23 .222

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JC-strengths T1 .73 .13 5.66 .000 .74 .13 5.84 .000

Intervention ⫻ Workload .48 .27 1.80 .075
F(df) 11.16 (3, 82) 9.41 (4, 81)
R2 (⌬R2) .29 .32 (.08)
DV: Developmental
crafting T2
Intervention .16 .15 1.13 .263 ⫺.81 .64 ⫺1.26 .212
Workload .03 .13 .02 .827 ⫺.12 .16 ⫺.77 .445
JC-develop T1 .52 .11 4.67 .000 .52 .11 4.70 .000
Intervention ⫻ Workload .40 .26 1.55 .125
F (df) 7,48 (3,82) 6,31 (4,81)
R2 (⌬R2) .22 .24 (.12)
Note. Gender (1 ⫽ male, 2 ⫽ female); intervention (0 ⫽ no intervention, 1 ⫽ intervention). JC ⫽ job crafting;
DV ⫽ dependent variable; T1 ⫽ Time 1; T2 ⫽ Time 2.

and because many workers do not have a direct supervisor (Bakker a quasi-experimental design, and in line with our expectations we
& van Woerkom, 2017), it is important to examine whether em- found that participating in the intervention was significantly re-
ployees can develop self-initiated strategies to increase aspects of lated to job crafting towards interests, which in turn was associated
their work engagement. We conducted an intervention study with with increased dedication and absorption among workers with a

Figure 1. Results of moderation analysis of workload on JC-interests. JC ⫽ job crafting.

 ALIGN YOUR JOB WITH YOURSELF 11

Table 8 their personal resources. For example, employees might have

Results of Moderated Mediation Analysis on Interests Crafting difficulties to recognize their own strengths because their strengths
and Absorption come so natural to them that they think that this is something that
everyone can do (Bakker & van Woerkom, 2018; Buckingham &
Variable B SE t p Clifton, 2001). This lack of awareness of their strengths might be
DV: Interest crafting T2 an explanation for the fact that the intervention did not have a
Intervention ⫺1.01 .64 ⫺1.60 .119 direct relationship with crafting towards strengths. Additionally,
Workload ⫺.149 .16 ⫺.94 .347 even though most employees will be aware of their interests,
Intervention ⫻ Workload .52 .26 2.02 .047 integrating these interests in the job might require creativity and
JC-interests T1 .69 .10 7.14 .000
Absorption T1 ⫺.05 .06 ⫺.84 .402 willingness to think “out of the box,” which is not always easy. For
DV: Absorption T2 example, finding ways to actually incorporate (nonwork related)
Interests crafting T2 .49 .17 2.86 .005 interests (e.g., music or fitness) in one’s work might be an addi-
Intervention ⫺.07 .23 ⫺.32 .753 tional challenge. Lastly, many employees are unaware of their
Interest crafting T1 ⫺.26 .19 ⫺1.38 .173
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potential for development and/or the learning processes that will

Absorption T1 .74 .10 7.71 .000
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

unleash their potential (Caffarella & O’Donnell, 1987; Doornbos

Unstandardized 95% CI et al., 2004; Nieuwenhuis & Van Woerkom, 2007), and this might
boot indirect
effect Boot SE LL UL still be the case after the intervention, which makes it difficult for
them to craft their job in such a way that they can use their
Bootstrap results for conditional indirect effect of intervention on potential for development. Other job crafting interventions (Gor-
absorption by workload
don et al., 2018) specifically stimulate employees to change job
Low workload (⫺1 SD) ⫺.03 .12 ⫺.327 .150
resources and job demands that might be easier to understand and
M (.00) .12 .08 ⫺.009 .340
High workload (⫹1 SD) .26 .13 .076 .594 to change.
Also unexpectedly, the job crafting intervention was not related
Note. Gender (1 ⫽ male, 2 ⫽ female); intervention (0 ⫽ no intervention,
to strengths and developmental crafting of employees with a high
1 ⫽ intervention). DV ⫽ dependent variable; JC ⫽ job crafting; T1 ⫽
Time 1; T2 ⫽ Time 2; CI ⫽ confidence interval; LL ⫽ lower limit; UL ⫽ workload. One explanation for these nonsignificant findings might
upper limit. be that in comparison to interests crafting, strengths and develop-
mental crafting are more difficult to manipulate with a relatively
short intervention. Stimulating interests crafting might be rela-
high workload. Moreover, we found that crafting towards strengths tively easy because people might intuitively feel better what their
was positively associated with all three dimensions of work en- interests are (Schofield, 1996), which makes it relatively easy to
gagement, and that crafting towards interests was positively asso- recognize tasks that appeal to these interests. Manipulating strengths
ciated with dedication and absorption.
Although we expected that the intervention would be associated
with job crafting behavior among all employees, this was not the Table 9
case. A possible explanation may be found in the meta-analytic Results of Moderated Mediation Analysis on Interests Crafting
study of Nielsen and Miraglia (2017). These authors concluded and Dedication
that intervention studies are highly dependable on contextual fac-
tors and that gaining understanding of what works for whom Variable B SE t p
enables organizations to set realistic expectations of what can be DV: Interest crafting T2
achieved (Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017). Organizational interventions Intervention ⫺1.03 .64 ⫺1.61 .111
may help bring about desired outcomes, like work engagement, but Workload ⫺.14 .16 ⫺.90 .373
the context determines whether these mechanisms are triggered Intervention ⫻ Workload .53 .26 2.04 .045
JC-interests T1 .69 .10 7.14 .000
(Cox et al., 2010). For example, poor leadership skills and an Dedication T1 ⫺.05 .07 ⫺.74 .464
organizational climate that is not supportive might undermine the DV: Dedication T2
potential gain of an intervention (Goodridge, Westhorp, Rotter, Interest crafting T2 .35 .14 2.41 .018
Dobson, & Bath, 2015; Higgins, O’Halloran, & Porter, 2012). Intervention .18 .19 .92 .360
Interests crafting T1 ⫺.10 .16 ⫺.60 .552
Relating this to our study, a large part of the employees were Dedication T1 .82 .09 9.40 .000
ambulatory caregivers who worked highly independent and for
most of the time without the presence of peers or a direct super- Unstandardized 95% CI
boot indirect
visor. Because peer and supervisor support are crucial for training effect Boot SE LL UL
transfer (Chiaburu, van Dam, & Hutchins, 2010), this could be a
reason why the intervention was not effective among employees in Bootstrap results for conditional indirect effect of intervention on
dedication by workload
general.
Low workload (⫺1 SD) ⫺.02 .09 ⫺.282 .111
In addition, we conceptualize job crafting in terms of adjusting M (.00) .08 .07 ⫺.003 .294
the job to personal resources. This implies that employees have a High workload (⫹1 SD) .19 .12 .019 .498
clear insight in their personal resources (their strengths, interests
Note. Gender (1 ⫽ male, 2 ⫽ female); intervention (0 ⫽ no intervention,
and potential for development). However, even though we in- 1 ⫽ intervention). DV ⫽ dependent variable; JC ⫽ job crafting; T1 ⫽
cluded a homework assignment to identify these personal re- Time 1; T2 ⫽ Time 2; CI ⫽ confidence interval; LL ⫽ lower limit; UL ⫽
sources, it might still be difficult for employees to really grasp upper limit.
 12 KUIJPERS, KOOIJ, AND VAN WOERKOM
crafting might be more difficult (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001),
because identifying one’s strengths requires a high level of self-
awareness (Hodges & Clifton, 2004) and because individuals are
preprogrammed to pay more attention to their weaknesses than to
their strengths (Roberts et al., 2005; Rozin & Royzman, 2001).
Moreover, manipulating developmental crafting might be more
difficult because working on developmental challenges is effortful,
particularly when participants choose to work on their deficits,
which can be defined as ways of behaving, thinking, or feeling that
do not come natural to an individual, which he or she does not
enjoy doing, but in which he or she can achieve competent func-
tioning if trained accordingly (Meyers, van Woerkom, de Reuver,
Bakk, & Oberski, 2015). Possibly, strengths crafting and develop-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
mental crafting therefore need more elaborate interventions and
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
more support from supervisors and peers.
Finally, whereas strengths crafting was positively associated
with dedication, absorption, and vigor, interests crafting was only
associated with dedication and absorption and developmental
crafting was not associated with any of the aspects of work
engagement. Possibly, working with strengths might be more
effective for increasing vigor, dedication, and absorption because
strengths refer to innate abilities that allow a person to perform at
his or her personal best (Wood et al., 2011) and that are authentic
and energizing to the user (Linley & Harrington, 2006). When
employees leverage their strengths at work, they are more likely to
be successful in attaining their work-related goals, which will
provide them with positive feedback, mastery experiences, and
less job demands (Bakker, 2011), thereby stimulating their self-
efficacy (Bandura, 1997), which is a well-known correlate of
employee work engagement (van Woerkom et al., 2016). In con-
trast, interests crafting might be less energizing because it does not
necessarily allow a person to build on innate abilities that are
associated with personal excellence. As pointed out above, devel-
opmental crafting might be more effortful than the two other types
of job crafting, especially when participants choose to work on
their deficits. On the short term, developmental crafting might
therefore even cost more energy than it gives. However, more
research is needed to systematically compare the effects of differ-
ent types of job crafting on vigor, dedication, and absorption.
Moreover, the fact that the intervention did have an indirect
association with the dedication and absorption of workers with a
high workload, but not on their vigor, might be explained by the
fact that we find those associations under conditions of high
workload. Even though workers with a high workload might be
activated to craft their job, they are still exposed to stressors and
involved in energy-draining processes that have a negative impact
on their vigor (Sonnentag & Niessen, 2008). Whereas job crafting
may help them to increase their dedication and absorption, their
workload remains high (particularly in the beginning of their job
crafting process), meaning that they still need to invest much effort
in accomplishing their tasks, which still depletes their energy
resources.
Theoretical and Practical Implications
By investigating the associations of three types of job crafting
that are aimed at adapting the job to the personal resources of the
employee (Kooij et al., 2017; Wrzesniewski et al., 2013), we
contributed to the literature in three ways. First, we build on the
job crafting framework introduced by Kooij et al. (2017). This
framework is unique from prior conceptualizations of job crafting,
but is still understudied. Furthermore, we extend this framework
by adding another personal resource that the job should be adjusted
to, namely, the growth potential of the employee. We thus distin-
guish developmental crafting in addition to strengths and interests
crafting. Even though existing job crafting frameworks seem to
include similar types of job crafting such as increasing structural
resources (Tims et al., 2012) or adoption job crafting (Bruning &
Campion, 2018), these types of job crafting are not linked to the
growth potential and the developmental needs of the worker.
Second, we add to the limited knowledge on the influence that the
work context may have on the effectiveness of a job crafting
intervention by showing that the intervention was positively re-
lated to interests crafting for employees with a high workload.
Third, we contributed to Kooij et al. (2017) who tested the effect
of a job crafting intervention on a very proximal outcome, namely,
person–job fit, by showing that among workers with a high work-
load, the job crafting intervention was positively related to job
crafting towards interests, which in turn was positively related to
increased dedication and absorption, which are more distal out-
comes.
The present study provides organizations with a practical tool to
increase interests crafting and subsequently dedication, and ab-
sorption among employees with a high workload. This is impor-
tant, as engaged employees have a higher well-being and better
health (Robertson & Cooper, 2010). In turn, organizations can
benefit from engaged workers, as work engagement is a strong
predictor of job satisfaction, turnover, and work performance
(Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005). The fact that our
intervention seems to be effective for those with a high workload
is highly important, as employees with a high workload are more
vulnerable to burnout (Maslach et al., 2001), which in turn can lead
to depression, anxiety, or chronic fatigue (Enzmann, Schaufeli,
Janssen, & Rozeman, 1998). Because managers are not always
available for their employees, it is important that employees are
able to take initiative to align their job with their personal re-
sources and engage in job crafting behaviors at the workplace. Our
intervention provides a relatively simple and cost-efficient tool to
help workers with a high workload in developing their own strat-
egies to derive more pleasure from their work, thereby making
them less dependent from the job resources that are offered to them
by the organization.
Limitations and Future Research
A first limitation of our study is that the participants were not
randomly assigned to the control and the treatment group, making
our study a quasi-experimental study. This means that the treat-
ment and control groups may not be comparable at baseline and
that differences between both groups might be due to chance,
rather than to a systematic factor related to the treatment. Even
though we did not find any systematic differences between the
treatment group and the control group on a range of variables (i.e.,
gender, age, educational level, job tenure, proactive personality,
and the variables that were included in our conceptual model),
causal inferences should therefore not be made on the basis of this
study.
 ALIGN YOUR JOB WITH YOURSELF
A second limitation of this study is that the control group did not
receive an intervention, making it more difficult to isolate the
content of the job crafting intervention as the active ingredient in
the intervention. It could therefore be that behavioral change has
occurred because of the attention the participant received through-
out the intervention, instead of the active elements in the program
(also known as the “Hawthorne effect”; Mayo, 1930). However,
we chose not to offer an alternative or placebo training because of
the potential loss of participants in the job crafting workshop.
Additionally, developing an alternative treatment can be complex
because some of the components of the alternative treatment may
overlap with those in the experimental treatment (Hart, Fann, &
Novack, 2008). Therefore, it might be difficult to determine which
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
ingredients are responsible for specific outcomes. Nevertheless,
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
future studies should try to single out effects of the job crafting
intervention by, for example, offering a placebo condition.
A third limitation of our study is the short follow-up period. This
is a shortcoming because we might miss delayed effects, and/or
neglect that existing relationships might fade away. That is, it
could be that it takes more time before employees can organize and
adjust their work in such a way that it suits them and that it leads
to higher levels of vigor, dedication, and absorption. For example,
to actually craft their job, employees might need to take over
clients from their coworkers or consult their supervisor.
Fourth, even though the occupations that were held by the
participants were diverse (e.g., ambulatory caregiver, finance, and
customer service), our sample of participants was recruited from
one health care organization, which is not representative for the
general working population. Related to this, the gender distribution
was skewed, with an overrepresentation of women. Future re-
search should therefore investigate whether the findings of our
study can be generalized to other sectors and samples. A fifth
limitation is that whereas we did include workload as an important
contextual condition in our current study, we did not include the
control or autonomy that participants had to cope with this work-
load due to sample size restrictions. Because the impact of work-
load on job crafting behaviors may be different for workers with
low versus high job control, future studies should include job
control or job autonomy as well.
Sixth, we want to point out that our focus on separate dimen-
sions of work engagement instead of work engagement as a whole,
and our finding that the job crafting intervention was associated
with the dedication and absorption of workers who experienced a
high workload, but not with their vigor, might have implications
for the interpretation of our findings. Because a meta-analysis by
Di Stefano and Gaudino (2019) found that dedication and absorp-
tion were positively related to workaholism, whereas vigor was
not, future research should aim to develop an intervention that
improves vigor as well and thus influences work engagement as
whole.
A final limitation is that our findings regarding the relationship
between job crafting and vigor, dedication, and absorption could
be subject to common method bias. We tried to minimize this bias
in our study by including a time lag and a comparison of inter-
vention conditions. Furthermore, a Harman’s one-factor test, in-
cluding the items of both job crafting and the three aspects of work
engagement suggested that common method bias was not an issue.
However, future studies should try to use other measures for work
engagement (e.g., peer or manager ratings), or should try to sep-
13
arate the measurement of job crafting and work engagement in
time.
In addition to addressing the limitations mentioned above, future
research could also build on our new conceptualization of job
crafting in terms of matching the job to personal resources by
identifying other relevant personal resources, such as professional
identity, that should be incorporated in the job crafting conceptu-
alization. Moreover, it might be useful to look at differences in
needs between individuals (e.g., need for achievement or need for
affiliation). Finally, future research should establish a differenti-
ated nomological network of job crafting dimensions (Rudolph,
Katz, Lavigne, & Zacher, 2017), for example, by examining an-
tecedents and effects of particular job crafting dimensions. Possi-
bly, job crafting in terms of the changes that employees make to
their job (e.g., task crafting, reducing demands) leads to other work
outcomes than job crafting in terms of aligning the job to personal
resources (e.g., strengths and development crafting).
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Received November 29, 2018
Revision received October 23, 2019
Accepted October 24, 2019 䡲