How HR can help employees build a career on their terms
It’s no secret that employees who are engaged produce better work and are more likely to stay at an organisation – but a key academic is calling for HR leaders to have a greater hand in helping employees build careers on their terms.
According to Dr Deepika Jindal, Professional Teaching Fellow at the University of Auckland, ‘job crafting’ is the future to ensure profitability and higher performance and needs to start with re-thinking job advertisements.
“Transforming an advert from a list of what you expect to a focus on skills that will make you successful is pivotal in giving your employees greater autonomy to do their best work,” Jindal said.
“The whole idea of job crafting is focusing on what you’re good at – so job ads need better communication that the job can be aligned to the employees’ values just as much as the business’. If we do the things that come naturally to us, we’re happier.”
Job crafting to boost engagement
Speaking ahead of her appearance at HR FutureFest in October, Jindal emphasised that people will bring different skills, personalities and passions to the table – so jobs will never be performed the same regardless of the job description.
“It’s about giving people the agency to take that job and making it their own by performing what suits their strengths, values, and needs. That’s good news for everyone because it means you’ve got more engaged workers,” she added.
Jindal, alongside keynote speaker, author and scholar, Holly Ransom, will discuss future-focused leadership strategies to offer high-impact careers for their employees during her session at HR FutureFest at the Timber Yard, Melbourne, on 29 October 2025.
From rewriting leadership norms to designing roles with purpose, this session is all about owning your path and helping others do the same. Expect bold thinking and candid, personal stories.
The focus of HR professionals, Jindal noted, is to unlock as much meaningfulness as possible to bring greater satisfaction to employees – beyond a description of how a job should be completed.
Strategic implementation of job crafting practices
To allow employees to thrive in their job, Jindal outlined that reviews of internal HR initiatives need to be reviewed to build job crafting into policies and practices.
“It starts with recruitment but needs to be in all facets of business operations. You need to give the message that people will have leeway within the boundaries of what they need to perform.”
“To do this effectively, you need to relinquish some form of power – especially when you are a line manager, which is a development piece. Too much autonomy, though, risks employees crafting their job for personal gain, not for the organisation.”
Reviewing practices to ensure they align with the employees’ own development goals, alongside appropriate guardrails to support both business and professional growth is key, Jindal underscored.
This is underscored by academic research which shows the necessity of employers to create a culture where workers feel psychologically safe to align work with their values.
Creating a business case for job crafting
Jindal believes businesses will reap tangible benefits from job crafting in the form of profitability and higher performance.
“There’s a lot of research evidence pointing to the benefits and the positive consequences of job crafting. When people craft their roles to fit with who they are, they're more engaged, they're more satisfied, they're more likely to go above and beyond – but better performance or profitability is a by-product.”
“It will happen, and that's what the organizations want, and that will happen when, when employees are committed, they are satisfied, they're giving their best. It’s not just a good thing to do - it leads to higher profitability. It leads to higher performance,” Jindal added.
