New publication about wellbeing and job crafting

This study among 1,877 Finnish dentists investigates how various types of employee well-being (i.e., work engagement, job satisfaction, burnout, and workaholism), may differently predict various job crafting behaviors (i.e., increasing structural and social resources and challenging demands, and decreasing hindering demands) over a time-span of 4 years. The results showed that (a) work engagement positively predicted both types of increasing resources and challenging demands and negatively predicted decreasing hindering demands; (b) workaholism positively predicted increasing structural resources and challenging demands; (c) burnout positively predicted decreasing hindering demands and negatively predicted increasing structural resources, whereas (d) job satisfaction did not relate to job crafting over time; and (e) work engagement positively influenced job satisfaction and negatively influenced burnout, whereas (f) workaholism predicted burnout after controlling for baseline levels. Thus, work engagement was a stronger predictor of future job crafting and other types of employee well-being than job satisfaction. Although workaholism was positively associated with job crafting, it also predicted burnout. We conclude that the relationship between job crafting and employee well-being may be more complex than assumed, because the way in which employees will craft their jobs in the future seems to depend on how they currently feel (download full article).