We are entering an era in which the boundaries between humans and technology are gradually blurring. Digitalization, automation, and the rise of artificial intelligence are transforming the nature of work faster than the human mind can adapt. Employees are under constant pressure to perform, remain flexible, and be ready for continuous change.
The result is a paradox of modern times: never before have we had more powerful tools, and yet the number of people who feel emotionally exhausted, disconnected, and deprived of deeper meaning in their work continues to grow. Burnout, routine, and feelings of alienation are no longer individual failures but symptoms of an outdated work model that still perceives employees primarily as passive executors of tasks.
Job Crafting: When Employees Become Architects of Their Own Work
At this point, the concept of job crafting comes to the forefront — the active reshaping of work by employees themselves. It is not a rebellion against the system nor an attempt to ignore organizational rules. Rather, it is a conscious process in which employees stop being mere recipients of instructions and become architects of their own work roles.
The goal is not to work less, but to work in a way that brings greater meaning, energy, and intrinsic motivation.
Our international research conducted among 451 employees from Central European countries shows that this approach is strongly associated with higher work engagement and a greater sense of meaningful work. It suggests that the future of work will depend not only on technology, but also on employees’ ability to actively co-create their own work experience.
Three Ways to Actively Co-Create Your Work Experience
The first way to actively co-create your work experience is to reshape your actual work tasks, a process known as task crafting. Employees actively seek out activities that better match their strengths, introduce new solutions, or change the way they approach their work. Instead of merely waiting for instructions, they consciously take co-responsibility for the structure of their working day. According to our research, this approach directly supports work engagement.
However, we observed an even stronger effect in the case of cognitive crafting, that is, changing the way employees think about their work. The issue is not what we specifically do, but the meaning we assign to it. Many employees today do not leave work exhausted because of the number of tasks they perform, but because they no longer see meaning in their work.
Cognitive crafting represents the ability to consciously shift one’s perspective and reconnect everyday activities with a deeper sense of purpose. In practice, this means reminding ourselves of how our work contributes to the organization’s functioning, what impact it has on customers or the wider community, and how it influences our personal growth.
The moment people stop seeing only spreadsheets, processes, and deadlines and begin to recognize the value they create for others, the quality of their intrinsic motivation changes as well. Our research showed that this form of job crafting had one of the strongest indirect effects on work engagement through increasing the sense of meaningful work.
The third area is social crafting, which refers to actively shaping workplace relationships. This includes building stronger relationships with colleagues, supporting teamwork, mentoring new employees, and creating a safer, more supportive team environment.
Why a Good Team Alone Is Not Enough
It was precisely within social crafting that our research revealed one of its most interesting findings. We found that simply building social relationships does not automatically have a direct impact on work engagement, despite the long-standing assumption that employee satisfaction naturally emerges in environments with good relationships and a “good team.”
However, the data suggest a more complex picture. Team-building activities, company events, or a friendly atmosphere alone are not enough if employees do not simultaneously perceive a deeper meaning in their work.
Relationships only become truly effective when they are connected to a shared purpose and a sense of meaning. Having coffee with colleagues alone does not increase engagement if people do not perceive value in what they do every day.
Meaningful Work as the Most Important Psychological Factor
The key concept emerging from the entire research was meaningful work itself. The findings showed that it functions as a central psychological mechanism through which employees’ proactivity is transformed into genuine work engagement.
While the direct impact of individual forms of job crafting on engagement was relatively weak, once meaningful work was incorporated into the model, it explained up to 68.7% of employees’ work engagement.
This means that being active alone is not enough. It is not enough to mechanically change tasks or build relationships. If people do not perceive value and meaning in their work, long-term intrinsic commitment cannot emerge.
Meaningful work is what transforms activity into dedication, performance into energy, and everyday work into something that gives people an inner reason to continue.
Citation:
Holúbek, J., Giovando, G., Lazarová, E., & Rozsa, Z. (2026). Job crafting, meaningful work and employee engagement. Management Decision, 64(13), 212–241. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-06-2025-1525
