Given the huge weight workers give to autonomy at work, it’s perhaps no surprise that job crafting is generally extremely popular. For instance, research published several years ago showed that being able to craft one’s job was strongly associated with improvements in engagement, satisfaction, and even lower burnout.

What’s more, other studies have shown that job crafting can also boost performance levels in teams by allowing people more control over their work environment.

“Organizations should encourage employees to craft their jobs and provide them with opportunities to “fit” their jobs to their strengths, skills, and working preferences,” the authors explain.

A recent study from Yale and the Stanford Graduate School of Business highlights how the benefits from job crafting can even extend to supporting a growth mindset within practitioners. The researchers examine something they refer to as a “dual-growth mindset”, which combines a flexible approach to both ourself and also our job.

Growth mindset

In other words, they explored what happens when people who adopt a growth mindset about their jobs combine it with a growth mindset about themselves. The hypothesis being tested was that working on both together would yield greater returns for those involved.

The researchers conducted a couple of experiments to test this hypothesis, and found that employees who were able to alter both their personal and job mindsets were able both to envision and then enact bigger changes to their job. What’s more, they also experienced greater increases to their long-term happiness.

They found that for meaningful, and sustainable, gains to be made, it appears to be crucial that we believe we’re capable of changing not only ourselves but also our environment.

Making changes

Participants were assigned to one of three distinct interventions to try and develop a growth mindset. One of the interventions focused on the individual, another on the job, while the final one combined both together.

The experiment was conducted in a large tech firm, with volunteers engaging in a number of two-hour workshops ostensibly designed around their career development. Each of the workshops was designed around one of the three interventions and employees were randomly assigned.

The researchers strived to capture the happiness of the participants over time, with surveys conducted before the workshop, a few weeks afterwards, and then again six months later. These surveys were not only self-reported but also captured the opinions of peers and managers at work. They were also asked to rate their level of growth mindset for both their self and their job at each of the intervals.

Not only did the dual-growth mindset boost happiness, it also seemed to be the stickiest in terms of long-term change. The results showed that those in the dual-mindset intervention were most likely to carry on exhibiting flexibility of thought about both themselves and their job.

“The nature of the changes people in the dual-growth mindset group were planning was just different,” the researchers explain. “That’s what we believe explains the longer-term benefits. It seems to be that mindset drives happiness through what you’re able to do because of the mindset.”

The authors believe that their findings are particularly pertinent to the modern workforce because the pandemic has fundamentally changed the nature of the modern workplace, both in terms of where it is and how it looks.

“Because of the pandemic, more people are working remotely now, and part of what that does is automatically loosen a lot of the strong scripts and cues that surround people in the job, what the routines are, and so on,” they conclude. “That becomes a really rich opportunity for job crafting.”