CNN cites Jane Dutton, Amy Wrzesniewski’s research on job crafting
October 13, 2021
The CNN article How to fix your job so that you love it, in three steps” cites research by Center for Positive Organizations (CPO) co-founder Jane Dutton and faculty affiliate Amy Wrzesniewski.
The article focuses on how workers can improve their day-to-day happiness through a process Dutton and Wrzesniewski call “job crafting.” Job crafting involves refining your job to add parts you like and remove parts you don’t, building better relationships with your colleagues, and reframing your job to add meaning and purpose.
Dutton and Wrzesniewski’s job crafting study focused on a group of hospital cleaning staff. The researchers discovered that those who liked their jobs saw themselves as playing a crucial role in patients’ healing, rather than just performing mundane tasks like emptying bed pans.
“It’s more than just a change of mindset,” Wrzesniewski says. “It’s a change in your behavior approach to your job. If you think ‘I’m an ambassador to the hospital,’ it changes what you do.”
Dutton is the Robert L. Kahn Distinguished University Emerita Professor of Business Administration and Psychology at the University of Michigan.
Wrzesniewski is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Yale University.