Melody Wilding (00:01.899)
Picture this, it’s Monday morning and instead of dragging yourself to work, you’re actually excited about the day ahead. Your job plays to your strengths. It aligns with your values. It gives you the flexibility you need. Does this sound like a pipe dream? Because this reality is actually closer than you think. And today we’re diving into the art and science of job crafting with my friend and our guest today, Erin Shrimpton.

Erin is a chartered organizational psychologist. She is a fellow LinkedIn learning instructor. She has made it her mission to help people transform their work lives. And we are living in a time where it’s no secret change and uncertainty seem to be the only constants in our careers. And Erin is going to talk to us today about how we can take back the reins and how we can shape our roles to be a better fit for our strengths, our values, our aspirations. So Erin, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Erin Shrimpton (01:02.658)
Thank you for having me, Melody. It’s great to talk to you.

Melody Wilding (01:06.057)
Yeah, I want to dive in. There’s so much you and I were chatting before recording and it was like, we could talk about this. We could talk about that. But I think the most obvious place to start is like I said, in my introduction to you, it’s no doubt that we are all experiencing a lot of change, lot of uncertainty at work. I’ve had clients that have gone through multiple reorgs in a year or all of a sudden there’s a downsizing announced or

priorities are shifting quickly. And something you talk about in your courses, I thought was a really interesting concept and something I had not actually not heard about before, which is this idea of job demands versus resources. So could you break down that model a little bit, describe what even job demands versus resources means, and then we can get into more about how do we balance those two things?

Erin Shrimpton (02:04.106)
Yeah. for me, it’s something that I, you know, there’s lots of things that I would have learned over the years, you know, from my psychology undergrad all the way through my, to my masters and in the workplace. there’s, there’s, if I’m honest, there’s maybe five big concepts that I use all the time personally. And, you know, there’s other things that obviously will be relevant for other people as well. But this one is one of those five and it’s, the job demand resources model is a model

that was originally designed to help people understand how burnout comes about. And there’s lots of ways to look at that. But this is one that I think resonates for me because when you, everybody has lots of demands on them, right? And I think what we think about when we think about burnout is that, you know, the tipping point where there’s too many demands on me and I can’t cope with all these demands and that’s what’s happened.

when you get to the point of not feeling great or even into the burn-out zone.

But what we forget is that we also have resources. So what this model talks about is the fact that there are, you know, even when demands are high, if you have the right resources to meet those demands, then actually engagement and wellbeing are a likely outcome. Now, when demands are high and you don’t have the right resources, that’s when burnout is likely. So, and actually, interestingly, when demands are low and also when resources are low, boredom is the outcome, which you can kind of, you know, we’ve,

We’ve all been there as well, haven’t we? mean, it’s been a while since I’ve been in that situation. But actually, you, you know, there are jobs that where, you you actually begin to feel a bit burnt out because you’re not stimulated enough. You don’t have enough demands on you. And then you also don’t have resources to kind of meet anything. So the way I look at it, and particularly now, since we can, we all have more autonomy over the way we work, you know, we can.

Melody Wilding (03:50.807)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (04:02.776)
go to most of us now can work virtually, most of us can choose how and when we work to, you know, to a certain extent, at least. I think it’s.

important to tune into what are the resources that we need to be able to meet the demands that we’ve got. Now this is never ever saying by the way that if there are too many demands on your place that you should just accept it and you know we all know again we’ve all been there too where we’ve worked in a place and there’s a boss who just has way too high expectations of us or whatever it might be. But it’s all about tuning into what are the resources that work for you? What are the things that

Melody Wilding (04:32.567)
you

Erin Shrimpton (04:39.51)
really help you keep your well-being on an even keel that help you to be able to meet those demands. And it can vary from anything from, you know, being able to tune into what you need in the moment. You know, so when you’re in that moment of overwhelm, high demands, being able to take a step back and tune in and go, right, what do I need right now? What’s important here? What do I need to help me being able to be able to meet these demands to, you know, a higher level? Do I have the right childcare?

Melody Wilding (04:49.382)
Hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (05:08.174)
Do I have the right exercise regime? Am I sleeping right well? all of those are all of these things are resources. Another resource I think we kind of don’t really focus enough on are things like, do we have access to something like a coach? Is our boss a really good coach? And when I flip this conversation, I’m talking to people who are managing teams, I always say, don’t forget that you can be a resource.

to your team, not necessarily by always coming in and saving them from burnout, but you can be a resource by coaching them. And that actually enables that sort of autonomy in themselves to overcome a high demand environment. I think it’s, yeah, it’s one that I always think when I’m feeling like there are too many demands on me from all different aspects of life, not always just work, of course, I always think, okay, well,

First of all, how can I reduce some of these demands? But also, often it’s not possible. As you said, one of the big demands on us at the moment is the fact that change and disruption are happening everywhere. And that in itself is a demand on our cognitive load. So don’t forget that. And when we look at it and say, I’m feeling overwhelmed by all these demands, to think and to remember that we do have some control and autonomy over finding the right resources to meet them. empowering thought.

Melody Wilding (06:09.611)
Thank you.

Melody Wilding (06:34.569)
Yeah, did such a, now, now that you say that so much clicked into place for me. cause I, you know, we’re both fellow LinkedIn learning instructors and I have a course about managing burnout. And in that course, I talk about how there’s three different types of burnout, which maps exactly to what you’re saying. The first one, the first one is overload burnout, right? Where you’re, you’re.

Erin Shrimpton (06:44.366)
Mm-mm.

Mmm.

Melody Wilding (07:00.043)
Demands exceed your resources. And then the second kind that surprises most of people to your point is under challenge burnout, when both your resources and your demands are low and it’s from boredom and a lack of engagement and enthusiasm and interest. And then the last kind, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts on whether this fits is neglect burnout, where you feel like, why even bother? If I…

Erin Shrimpton (07:14.872)
Yeah.

Melody Wilding (07:28.385)
try to do something here, someone’s just going to change it or shoot it down. Why even bother? So does that one fit into your, into the job demands versus resources?

Erin Shrimpton (07:39.38)
Yes, I bet it fits into

absolutely everything I’ve ever witnessed, both from a personal perspective in work, but also working with teams and different organizations, particularly when change is afoot. That feeling of not having agency over your own life, not having the ability to exercise your own control over what happens in some way, shape or form.

Melody Wilding (07:45.109)
Yeah.

Melody Wilding (08:01.387)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (08:10.058)
is so highly correlated with a lack of wellbeing or not feeling well. I even to the point of, there are studies about control over, and I think the word control can sometimes be, I try not to use it actually, to be honest, because sometimes it can be a bit of a tricky word, has been different connotations. When I talk about control, I really mean autonomy, that feeling of I can affect change in my own life. But,

Melody Wilding (08:33.281)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (08:36.387)
you know, it is so highly correlated or when people do have that feeling of being able to even exercise a little bit of their own autonomy over parts of their working life, it is highly correlated with well-being.

And yeah, so what I was saying is there are lots of studies to show that even having a lack of control over your working life is correlated with really physical symptoms of, whether it’s musculoskeletal issues, respiratory issues. And so it makes me think, wow, even if, this is partly what I guess where you described at the intro my mission so nicely, but this is why.

so much of what I do, really try to help people find where they can control, what they can control in their working lives or where they can exercise that agency or autonomy in their working lives. Because we can all find some aspect of it, even though it might feel, even though it really might feel, you know, some organizations which are more bureaucratic and don’t give you that autonomy to change anything, there are always things that you can find.

And that’s kind of where I always come back to and I always try and remind people to try and find that one thing.

Melody Wilding (09:50.839)
Absolutely. you know, we were, I was just having this conversation with a group of clients yesterday. We were talking about burnout and it came up that sometimes you have to find that agency outside of work, whether it’s, you know, taking on a new activity or something outside of work can then build up that sense of momentum again. And that, can translate over to your professional life. But

But even looking at where, where can I affect change right now can be really helpful when you’re in that, that feeling of powerlessness too. Yeah. so it sounds like when, when we’re talking about resources, I love that term as well. when we’re talking about resources, it sounds like there’s tangibles and intangible resources. And I know you also talk about the different types of resources. I believe there’s eight or so.

Erin Shrimpton (10:27.714)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Erin Shrimpton (10:41.07)
Hmm. Yeah, that’s good.

Melody Wilding (10:48.317)
would you be willing to walk us through what some of those are to give people a sense of maybe there’s resources they’re overlooking, or maybe there’s ones that they can shore up for themselves or advocate for.

Erin Shrimpton (11:02.048)
Yeah, and I think, I mean, suppose, overall, probably my answer to this question is that it’s all individual. Each of us have different resources that will work for us. You know, so what might work for me might not work for you. so, but what, yeah, so what I did, because I have a course that does into this in LinkedIn Learning. And so what I did was I looked and saw, there are a number of resources that are probably ubiquitous, that are, you know, probably everybody would benefit from in one way or another.

And I didn’t even include in those, I didn’t even include things like good sleep, hygiene, know, exercise, those things we know at this stage, don’t we? know and whether, you know, some weeks we might be better at it than others and you know, that’s all all right. But there are a couple of things that I would say and I would 100 % rely on myself, but also advise for other people that to even just look, take a step back and look at your…

Melody Wilding (11:44.055)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (11:57.742)
routine in a working week. And I this may seem like kind of obvious advice, you know, we all have control over our routine to a certain extent and we do what we do and you know, but actually just to take a step back and look at okay, where am I placing the right resources in this in this working week to help me be at my best this week. So and I always look at two things because we know from you know, it’s pretty much

agreed upon across all of the human sciences that human connection is a resource to us in terms of going through times of adversity, going through times of change.

We know that in the moment, having a moment of connection with somebody literally, and we were talking about this just before we came on, didn’t we? Weren’t we? But even having a moment of human connection with somebody, Barbara Friedrichsen, she’s a social psychologist in the positive psychology movement, terms of the micro moment of connection. But even having those micro moments, you know, whether it might be just a chat with a barista down in the coffee dock or with now, and most of us working virtual, maybe with a delivery driver.

Melody Wilding (12:41.611)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (13:05.556)
even just those little micro moments where you have a quick burst of connection with somebody regulates the nervous system. And so that for me, I think of that as a resource for my working week. because at the moment I work quite a lot by myself. I think of my, think I look at my week and I think, right, this week I need to make sure within my routine that I have enough moments of connection. So I am definitely going to meet somebody for a coffee or plan to meet somebody for a walk.

Melody Wilding (13:09.356)
Mm.

Erin Shrimpton (13:32.608)
Or if I have a day where I know I need to get my head down and I’m not going to see anyone, I need to make sure on those days and I’m going down to the local village and getting a coffee and at least having a brief conversation with somebody. So there’s the balance of that, but also on the flip side, having the space in your diary to have deep work and flow, is again, a kind of an evidence-based idea from the world of psychology. Flow is this idea that you can get into

Melody Wilding (13:51.862)
Yeah.

Erin Shrimpton (14:01.87)
deep focus and you’re enjoying meaning and engagement from the task that you’re whatever you’re engaged in. Flow isn’t, it’s often associated with creative work, but you can be in a flow experience in a great conversation like we are right now. You can be in a flow experience during a mountain hike. can be in a flow experience when you’re painting your wall. Really it’s anything that allows you to just turn off the busy thoughts that are in your head.

Melody Wilding (14:21.483)
Mm.

Erin Shrimpton (14:29.974)
and to access that, they call it a peak human experience. And that is literally what happens. mean, even neuroimaging shows that the busy part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex goes a little bit quieter during the flow experience and you are actually accessing a different part of your brain. So it’s almost meditative to be honest, because you are literally focusing so heavily and enjoying that lovely meaning and engagement as you do it. So I would always make sure

as I would look at both of those things as resources in my week to make sure that I have those times allotted within my routine and make sure that they are well balanced. And again, it’s all about what works for you, isn’t it? Because some people actually thrive on way more human connection and collaboration than others. Others might prefer probably to tip the balance more towards the deep work and individual kind of work.

Melody Wilding (15:03.499)
Mm.

Erin Shrimpton (15:27.16)
But so it’s all about tuning in and what works for you. But those are things that I would always, first and foremost, recommend. And even to a team leader who might ask me, what can I do with my team? That we’re all going through change. How will we make sure to protect well-being during this time? My first and foremost thing is, I know it sounds a bit boring, but make sure that you are all working together to create a routine that really works for you all. So it’s really about flipping it in your head and thinking,

Melody Wilding (15:30.145)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (15:58.758)
If I said to you before, you probably wouldn’t necessarily think of human connection as a resource or the flow experience as a resource. We think of resources as access to a healthcare system or as I before, access to childcare, whatever, but actually resources are anything that we can use to keep our wellbeing uneven.

Melody Wilding (16:07.446)
Yeah.

Melody Wilding (16:21.651)
Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. And you know, the idea of flow is interesting because flow is, and please correct me if I’m, if I’m off base here, but flow is, sort of a balance between stress and enjoyment where to get into flow, has to be challenging enough that it has your attention. So there has to be a certain level. It’s the right level of demand and the right level of resourcing is when you, is when you hit that, that sweet spot of flow.

Erin Shrimpton (16:50.414)
Absolutely. Yeah, so in a way it’s sort of like a microcosm of that model, isn’t it? Because yeah, that’s exactly it. I even recommend trying to find something, you know, if you’re in the moment experiencing overwhelm or too much demand in one aspect of your life.

Melody Wilding (16:51.413)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (17:08.81)
I would always recommend going away and trying to find even something. I mean, technically the flow experience is something that you’d usually get into for a long period of time, but is there even something you can do for five or 10 minutes that will just allow you to get into a micro moment of flow? And, you know, sometimes it might be for me anyway, might be, you know, just taking, closing my laptop, doing a little drawing for my kids or whatever it is, you know, something that is always a little bit challenging as you say, but we can, you surprise yourself for

your appetite for challenge in one aspect of your life. Even if you feel like you’re overwhelmed with challenging in another, if you move away from that challenge and you can still find the energy to overcome a challenge in another. So yeah, definitely it doesn’t, it’s not all about. And again, I think this is another kind of slight myth when it comes to.

and well-being and burnout. It’s not all about taking rest as in I don’t need to go away and have a nap every time I’m feeling overwhelmed, although obviously that would always be nice. But sometimes it’s just about engaging your brain in a different way. So, so that’s, yeah.

Melody Wilding (18:11.627)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And, it’s interesting cause I’ve, I’ve studied a bit about flow and what I’ve found, what I’ve found interesting that I didn’t realize at first is that flow to get into it, you have a struggle phase, right? Where it’s like, this problem is so difficult. I don’t know how I’m ever going to see my way through this. This is so tough. I don’t want to do this anymore. And then you have to have a release phase where

Erin Shrimpton (18:29.134)
Mmm.

Melody Wilding (18:40.809)
Okay, I’m going to step away from this for a while and that entering that mode of thinking where you can rest just enough, you can give your brain perspective is when your mind in the background is making those connections. And then you can, when you come back to the problem, you can get into flow because you’ve, you’ve done all that processing in the background. And I’ve always found that interesting. Like you were saying, it does require shifting thinking modes.

Erin Shrimpton (19:00.726)
Yes. Yes.

Erin Shrimpton (19:10.41)
Mm-hmm. That’s really true, actually. like when you go… know, in and of itself, most things in work are difficult, uncomfortable experiences, aren’t they? You when it comes to like sitting down and getting into the nitty-gritty of a problem or whether it’s sitting down and writing, you know, writing a piece of content or writing a difficult email to explain something, it’s always difficult.

But you’re right, once you overcome that initial hump and then walk away from it and come back to it, it’s always so much easier. yeah, so think that’s really, that’s really, so I think once you get yourself into the mode of getting into flow, you know, when you give yourself that chance to not have, you know, your diary full of meetings all the time. So that’s, you know, and again, our working world is so overwhelmed with too many meetings in the diary, constantly do, do, do, do.

One of the other things I’m always saying to people is, okay, do you really need to be in all of those meetings? Can you at least even batch them? Or, you know, maybe you don’t need to go to that particular meeting every week. You could go once every two weeks and, you know, see how you get on. But make sure that you are giving yourself time in your week to get into that flow experience of whatever it may be for you.

Melody Wilding (22:32.297)
This whole conversation about navigating change, you mentioned the idea of auditing your schedule, I think leads very nicely into a big topic I wanted to discuss with you, which is job crafting. I would love to hear how you define this idea because I think it’s something that gets thrown around a lot, but people may not really understand what it is at the core.

Erin Shrimpton (22:59.757)
Yeah, so, and it actually flows on really nicely from what we were just discussing, because really to me, job crafting is about redesigning your job or redesigning the tasks within your job to help you find more meaning and engagement in your day to day. So I think of it as, you know, looking at your day and making sure that you’re finding time in your day where you’re finding intrinsic motivation. So intrinsic motivation is

psychologists speak basically for that nice motivation that comes from within rather than, of course we all are motivated extrinsically, which is, you know, if I do this, I’ll get that. If I do this piece of work, I will be paid. You know, of course, you know, we’d all be superhuman if we weren’t motivated in that way to a certain extent.

But we know that in order to find meaning in our days and meaning in our work, we have to also be motivated intrinsically. So we have to be doing things like we just discussed in the flow experience. We have to be doing things that we don’t need any reward for because we are finding that meaning and fulfillment in and of itself. So job crafting to me is kind of a bit of mission to find more time doing that. So it was initially…

coined as a term in 2001 by researchers Amy Reisnessky and Jane Dutton. And there’s been lots of research on it ever since. But they did find, I guess, if you think about it, it’s a very old school idea. What we the way we look at jobs is, you know, to write a job description. It’s usually done by the manager or it might be done by the person who did the job before you. And then they pass it on.

And whoever actually does a job based on the actual description that’s written down, it’s never the same, is it? Usually we all tweak our roles in some way, shape or form. So this is kind of just that idea and then extending it a little bit. And it’s really by, again, giving that autonomy to the person. So it’s not like, you know, I’m a manager and I’m going to tell you, here’s how you do your job. It’s actually saying, listen, here are the outcomes and the deliverables that you need to achieve. How you do it?

Erin Shrimpton (25:19.382)
is up to you. And when you think about it that way, it really opens up a whole new world of, okay, so there’s lots of different ways I can do this job. There’s lots of different places I can do this job. There’s lots of different ways I can relate to people to get this job done. And again, because of what we talked about earlier, because having that autonomy of your work is so highly correlated with engagement, with wellbeing, it’s a really positive thing to encourage people to do.

Melody Wilding (25:30.187)
Yeah.

Melody Wilding (25:46.423)
So how do you, where do you start? Because it seems like there could be so many facets to this or so many things you might want to change about your role to make it more ideal or better fit for you. where, where do you begin?

Erin Shrimpton (26:02.83)
Yeah, and I think that’s a really good point. And it, you know, also it is a bit idealistic to think that you can just suddenly totally change your job to make it perfect for you. I mean, of course we’re all working within the constraints of doing boring tasks most of the time. That’s what work is basically. And also many of us are working in big corporations that have certain set processes for doing things and certain set expectations. Very importantly, certain

cultures and certain norms that people are adhering to, right? it’s I’m not suggesting that you can just suddenly turn your job around and everybody should do this, which is why I always suggest you start small. But I suppose the first thing I would say is just take a step back and think about what is meaningful to you. So what are your values and what are your strengths? So we know that we’ll find intrinsic reward in something when we are playing to our strengths.

and also when it’s aligned with our values. So, you know, for example, if you value collaboration, are you doing tasks every day that are enabling you to work with other people? Or, you know, or if your strengths, if you have a really big creative flair, one of your strengths is something, is creativity, but you’re working in a project management job. Is there a way, which is, is,

Melody Wilding (27:13.079)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (27:27.096)
probably a real life example for me. You there was a period of my life where I was working in project management roles and realizing, first of all, this is not linked to my strength. Second of all, you know, I’m not getting to, to be creative in my day to day. And so how do you find ways to just, you know, find ways to just put a little bit of creativity into what you’re doing. So the first step I suppose is to be aware of it, to be aware of what are my strengths, what are my values.

And then you can start to think of different ways to incorporate those things into your day to day. the researchers who I mentioned earlier found three main ways of job crafting. The first is about the task. using this example, if you are having to present information to people on Excel or something that sends you to sleep, can you find a different way of presenting it that might be a bit more aligned with your creative flair? know, or…

you know, are you sick of having meetings constantly on Zoom or constantly, you know, on a virtual platform? Can you make take your meetings outside and have a walk and talk? So it’s just like little tweaks that you make to your day or to your tasks within your day that make it that make it really suit you better. There’s also relational crafting, which is one that I think is really big at the moment. And in fact, we’ve all been relational crafting over the last few years, right? Because

Melody Wilding (28:41.547)
Yeah.

Erin Shrimpton (28:50.54)
we went from a situation where we were all pretty much in a workplace or in an office relating to each other in an impromptu fashion by the coffee dock, you know, or in the elevator or whatever it is. And now we have to be more intentional about how we relate to our colleagues because many of us are working either completely virtually or in a hybrid fashion. So we have to think more about how am I relating to somebody? But it also, it’s all about, you know,

you might be somebody who actually prefers to relate to somebody and engage in information and exchange information in a way that is, you know, via Slack versus, you know, I think a lot of us prefer to pick up the phone and talk on the phone. So it’s really, it’s all about thinking about how do I prefer to relate to people? And then the last one, which is called cognitive crafting, which is sounds kind of like a fancy thing, but it’s really just about how you think about your job. So I like this one as well, because

I think, again, we’re not really, many of us just kind of go in, do the task, do the job, but we don’t get an opportunity to really think broadly and widely about the organization, about what the organization is there to do and what our contribution is. So I worked many, many years ago now in a startup, which was then turned into a scale-up, but we were all very close to the purpose and the meaning of the work.

Melody Wilding (30:11.062)
Mm.

Erin Shrimpton (30:11.372)
we could see it. was a really direct line of sight between what we did every day and the end user. And I think in large organizations, which I subsequently worked in and with, it can be very hard to identify what is my contribution meaning here? What do I actually, how do I actually impact the end user here or how do I impact this strategy? And so one thing I always recommend for people to do, especially when you start a new job,

is to just go around and talk to people across the organization, pick up the phone, meet people from different teams, know, meet senior leaders, ask for time in senior leaders diary. Most senior leaders actually really appreciate being asked about their role, being asked about what the organization is there to do. And it’s so helpful to you as an individual to understand, this is okay, so this is how this all works. You know, it’s amazing, think, speaking to people often in large organizations.

they’re very aware of what their team is doing and what their job is, hopefully, but they’re less aware of what’s going on at the bigger picture. And that’s through no fault of their own. It’s because, you know, huge organizations often are just really complex. But a way to overcome that is to, you know, to try and take it upon yourself to go and find that meaning. I think that’s a really nice way to job craft as well. So there’s lots and lots of different ways of job crafting. It’s not just, you know, not just one.

Melody Wilding (31:10.272)
Hmm.

Melody Wilding (31:20.694)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (31:35.342)
you know, and not just over one day where you sit down and rewrite your job spec. It’s a process over time of connecting in with what’s meaningful to you, what tasks you enjoy doing, how you want to reshape, how you spend your time to make sure you’re doing those tasks and, you know, thinking about all those other different things about relation to people and about thinking about the meaning of the wider context as well.

Melody Wilding (31:46.871)
Mm.

Melody Wilding (31:59.861)
Yeah, so much here I want to unpack and just go a little deeper too. It’s great. And what underlies all of this is that you have more opportunity, power, control to do this than you might think. You might think, well, I’m just locked into this role. This is how it is. But we were talking about small shifts and those sort of one, one degree improvements every month or two add up to a sea change over time.

Erin Shrimpton (32:03.556)
Yeah.

Melody Wilding (32:29.723)
And what stands out to me about that too is from a, you know, managing up perspective or an organizational awareness perspective. When you do that incrementally and more slowly, other people may be more open to it or amenable to those changes because it’s not this overnight. Well, today I’m a project manager. Now I want to be creative director. It’s not, it’s not this jarring shift. It’s just this incremental growth and other people.

Erin Shrimpton (32:45.069)
Yes.

Melody Wilding (32:57.623)
can get on board with that many times because they don’t meet, they don’t notice the change or they may see how it’s benefiting them over time. And then they’re more bought into letting you do more of the things you like to do going forward. Cause they’ve already seen the results. I think it’s really smart from that perspective as well. And the other thing I just wanted to underscore is a lot of what you’re saying also requires you to do.

deep thinking or articulation of how do you actually like to do your work? What gives you energy and what doesn’t and what are your preferences around communication or who you want to spend time with or what is the best application of your skills? And I think most of us are just operating on such autopilot that we, never stop to do that. And so it’s such, it’s really important. Just homework to be doing.

to, think about how do I like to work and how can I teach the people around me to get more value out of what I have to offer here? And, you know, I’m, we were chatting earlier, I’m writing this new book. It’s actually called managing up. And, some of the things you are mentioning fit into that, like this idea of exploring how do you like to do work? One thing I recommend is putting together a me manual.

What are your preferences around communication or what time you like to work, how you like to receive information, what brings out your best, what brings out your worst. You don’t necessarily have to share it with anyone though you can if your culture is open to that, but it gives you this data to have the lookout for job crafting opportunities when you see them so you can capitalize on them.

Erin Shrimpton (34:49.25)
that’s it exactly to have a front of your mind. know, and the thing is, yeah, when you’re young in your career, and I know I was guilty of this completely, but when you’re young in your career, you just want to come in and observe what everybody else is telling you and…

and behave and execute tasks based on that because you don’t really have the confidence to think about, how would I do this best? And so the way I always suggest to think about it is just think of this like in a phase of experimentation, experiment with different ways of working, experiment with different ways of relating to people, experiment with different ways of executing tasks.

to find out, yeah, okay, actually that, I liked doing that. So like one example I give of late is we both write newsletters on LinkedIn and I started drawing little doodles really on my LinkedIn newsletters and they’re really basic. I’m not an artist, I’m not a designer.

Melody Wilding (35:45.707)
I love that.

Erin Shrimpton (35:51.554)
But I realized I really enjoyed doing it. And I just thought, actually, this is job crafting. Because I could write this newsletter without it. It would still go out and probably.

be fine. I’m sure it be absolutely fine. But actually for me, it’s nice. I always like to have that slot in my week where I sit down and get my pencil out and do some drawing. And actually I managed to then now get that into my newsletter. again, that’s an example of, you know, look, that’s taken me many years to get to the point of just thinking and having the confidence to just go, yeah, let’s just try that. I appreciate that when you’re earlier on in your career, it’s harder to take those risks, isn’t it?

Melody Wilding (36:24.887)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (36:30.702)
But I do think having that mindset, that experimental mindset of, do you know what, I’ll just try something and see if it works, see how I feel about it, see if it resonates for other people. And as you say, I think it’s really, really good call out to see if it’s role modeling to other people as well and see if it’s actually helping out your manager because you might find ways to do your job that is way better than how it was done before. And so, you know, because often people say to me, yeah, but is it not a hard sell when it comes to job crafting?

for your manager, you you don’t want your manager thinking, you know, you’re going off and doing whatever takes your fancy all day long. But actually, if you can demonstrate that you can be trusted, and that you can still deliver, deliver the donuts, based on whatever, you know, whatever the outcomes you’re supposed to be achieving, it surely won’t matter to them how you’re doing it, in most cases. Yeah.

Melody Wilding (37:25.503)
In most cases, yes. Are there, before we wrap up here, I would love to ask you, are there any mistakes or pitfalls you see people make when it comes to drop job crafting? It sounds like one of them is trying, maybe trying to change too much too fast, but anything else come to mind that we can give us a look out for people.

Erin Shrimpton (37:45.728)
Yes. One thing I always say to be very careful about, don’t be a lone ranger when it comes to job crafting, because the worst thing that you can be on a team is somebody who’s off self-actualizing, you know, and when I say that, I mean, you know, that on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where you’re at the very top, you know, really enjoying this fantastic level of motivation because you’re doing all the things that are meaningful and engaging to you.

because you’ve managed to craft your job in that way, but everybody else in the team is left with all of the really boring mundane tasks because you’re not doing them. So make sure that when you are job crafting, of course, first stakeholder to talk to is your manager. But so don’t, you obviously have to make sure that you’re having open conversation with them about what you’re doing. But also I would always recommend doing collective job crafting. So talking and getting

getting together with the team. And this is particularly important at the moment, particularly with the relational crafting piece, because I think we’ve all found our balance to a certain extent post pandemic in terms of how we’re working. sure, recently this week, had Amazon calling workers back to the office full time. We’re still having chopping and changing about the way we are working with one another.

Some organizations are doing the total opposite. Some organizations are saying we’re all working completely virtually now. it’s, think for employees at the moment, it’s actually quite hard to know, where is this all going to land? And again, to take it back and to take the kind of the autonomy on our own shoulders and say, okay, well, why don’t we get together as a team, work out together the tasks that we need to complete, work out how we can complete them together and work out how we’re relating to one another.

Melody Wilding (39:10.775)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Shrimpton (39:34.358)
in terms of collaborating, but also in terms of actually connecting with each other. Because again, I think a big thing for people is that we’re all missing a little bit that impromptu human connection that we used to have all the time as a given. So I would say make sure that whatever you’re doing in terms of job crafting isn’t affecting other people negatively, because that’s not going to be popular. But also, actually, as a continuation of that, actually, why don’t you try job crafting together? I think that’s a really nice way of

Melody Wilding (40:00.789)
Yeah. And you never know that’s something you want off of your plate. Someone may be like, that’s exactly what I would love to be doing more of. You never know that that, yeah, that that may happen. So.

Erin Shrimpton (40:10.305)
Yeah, mean, I’m always surprised when people say to me, no, I love Excel. And I go, okay, you do my Excel thing for me then.

Melody Wilding (40:14.655)
Yeah. Go ahead. Absolutely. Erin, thank you so much. This is such a fun conversation. I love getting to do this because I just, I get to catch up with my friends. So it’s always so fun. Tell the good listeners where they can learn from you, connect with you. What are the best places?

Erin Shrimpton (40:27.086)
That’s great.

Erin Shrimpton (40:35.79)
The place that I’m mostly hanging out at the moment is on LinkedIn. So you’ll definitely find me, Erin Shrimpton on LinkedIn. I have LinkedIn, as you mentioned, I have LinkedIn learning courses. So you’ll find me on there as well. I do have an Instagram account at Erin underscore Shrimpton, probably less active on Instagram, although I’m trying to get a little bit more, a bit more engaged with that. And then I have website, which is just Erin Shrimpton.com.

Melody Wilding (41:00.417)
Fantastic. Thank you, Erin, so much for being here.

Erin Shrimpton (41:03.118)
Thank you for having me.