Crafting From Home: A Qualitative Analysis of Job Characteristics and Job Crafting in Hybrid Work

With the transition to hybrid work arrangements, employees experience altered job characteristics that increase the relevance of proactively shaping their work environment. Yet, little is known about how employees’ perceptions of job characteristics are linked to their job crafting behaviours when working partially from home. To explore crafting behaviours targeting experienced job demands and job resources in this specific context, we conducted a qualitative study involving 22 semi-structured interviews with hybrid working employees from Germany. Our findings reveal that employees engage in role-based, resource-based, and time-spatial crafting efforts to optimise their hybrid working conditions. However, job crafting strategies vary depending on employees’ subjective evaluation of job-related demands and resources, which are shaped by individual differences in personal factors and boundary conditions. We identified several patterns of interrelationships between experienced job demands, job resources, and job crafting strategies. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by embedding job crafting research within hybrid work settings, highlighting the role of subjectivity in shaping both perceptions of job characteristics and job crafting behaviours from home.