The idea of job crafting arose when researchers witnessed that two people with identical job descriptions were doing different things. Depending on what professionals regard as good or important to their work (or boring and degrading), they change their tasks, relationships, contact, or way of thinking about their work. Exploring these strategies with a number of professionals led Prof Van Vuuren to write the first practical handbook for job crafting in the world.
This is not a shortcut towards one’s dream job, as all jobs include less popular chores. Prof Van Vuuren however believes that improvements are definitely possible. During this workshop, he will share his experiences and stories. He will summarise job crafting research, methodology and strategies to develop concrete ideas for personal job improvement which can be implemented the very next day.
Prof Mark van Vuuren
More about the expert
Working at the Department of Communication Science, Prof Van Vuuren’s main research interest is communication in the context of organisations. He studies work meaning (ways people make sense of content and significance of their work) and the entanglement of professional work with technology. This leads to research projects on (professional) identity work, job crafting, sociomateriality, sustainable communication and “healthy organisations”. Prof Van Vuuren also teaches courses in corporate and organisational communication. He was awarded a “Best Teacher” award by the students of the University of Twente, and received five Best Teacher awards within the Department of Communication Science.
About the workshop
The workshop will take place on 21 September 2018 from 09:00 to 12:00 in the Optentia Indaba Room in building 7 on the campus in Vanderbijlpark. Enquiries can be directed to Ms Lynne Booysen at lynn.booysen@nwu.ac.za.
