Personalisation: the only way to work
Once upon a time, we could catagorise our lives in the most simplistic of ways. There was work life and personal life.
In today’s modern landscape, those boundaries are a little more blurred. Work boundaries have the potential to disrupt personal boundaries, which is not so good if life becomes all work, no play.
However, if your personal boundaries interact with work boundaries in a positive way, maybe work can become a little more you. You have the power to make work more about what you need. This is called personalisation of work.
What is personalisation at work?
Personalisation of work is the idea of tailoring the employee experience to the individual, making work work for them, rather than providing the same offer to all employees.
Work benefits like a free car parking space or discounted gym membership won’t cut it in the workforce today. As Rob Baker from Tailored Thinking says, we customise all aspects of our lives, including our cars, clothes and coffee, yet we don’t proactively personalise our work. This is surprising, as many of us spend much of our lives working.
Job crafting
Tailoring work around people, rather than expecting people to tailor their lives around work, has been labelled ‘job crafting,’ a term coined by organisational psychologists Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton. It allows people to customise, shape and design work around their individual talents, strengths and passions.
This approach complements the idea of the employee experience. To create a positive employee experience, the employer must satisfy the needs of the individual to make work more meaningful and satisfying.
For an employer to get the most from their people, they have to consider drivers. From financial incentives to flexible working conditions, we all have different motivations at work. An effective employee experience is achieved through implementing personalisation at work, a method of hyper-personalisation.
Recruitment is marketing
Traditionally, hyper-personalisation is a marketing practice, but like so many marketing methods, it has been adopted into the world of talent attraction and engagement. After all, recruitment is marketing.
Aaron McEwan, vice-president of research and advisory at tech consultancy Gartner and a coaching psychologist, says many employers now have to sell work to their employees.
Marketing an organisation as a great place to work requires an employer to think outside of the confinements of individual job roles and effectively sell the experience in a way that appeals to the person, not the worker.
Research backs this thinking. A survey by Gartner found that 85 percent of candidates felt it was important to be seen as a person and not just an employee.
Rob Baker lists the five main ways people job craft:
Task crafting: Offering flexibility in the way people complete tasks and providing the fluidity needed to work in a spontaneous nature where tasks can be prioritised, removed or redesigned.
Relationship crafting: Shaping how we relate and engage with colleagues and clients, providing the opportunity to build and strengthen working relationships.
Purpose crafting: Taking a holistic view to work and determining the value it brings to ourselves and others, leading to a more meaningful relationship with our work.
Wellbeing crafting: Ensuring that work provides a boost to physical and mental health, something that is achievable if people have a positive employee experience.
Wrapping up
Personalisation at work will give you a greater chance of retaining top talent, offering value to every person at your organisation.
A people-first approach can help you attract more potential employees and stay ahead of the competition.
For more insights on how to attract and engage the best people, take a look at the Heart Talent blog.