The principle behind job sculpting is finding out the employees deep-seated life interests and enabling the employee to use and develop those interests as part of their work. It sounds easy, but can be very difficult. Butler and Waldroop say this is because " many people only have a dim awareness of their own deeply embedded life interests."" Many people are in roles that have no bearing on their life interests, so while they may be exceptionally good at their jobs, there is no anchor to that position. If the company (or employee) cannot recognize the problem, the employee is very likely to leave the organization.
To maximize the retention of employees, it is therefore important to understand the employees, and have them understand themselves. Waterman et al say that a company needs " a system that helps employees regularly assess their skills, interests, values, temperaments so that they can figure out the type of job for which they are suited."" .
Job sculpting could possibly mean that all roles in an organization can be filled by people whose life interest correspond in some measure to the tasks they perform. It is, however, more likely that job sculpting will give you another tool to retain those people you cannot afford to lose.
2. The role of an HR department.
The role of the Human Resources department has changed over the years. Stewart, in 1996, said that HR departments were primarily performing administrative duties (80% of their work) and that we should.
" blow the sucker up. I don't mean improve HR. Improvement is for wimps. I mean abolish it. Deep-six it. Rub it out; eliminate, toss obliterate, nuke it; give it the old heave-ho, force it to walk the plank, turn it into road kill."".
If HR departments were to remain as bureaucracies with nothing more than an administrative function, Stewart was probably spot-on in his thinking. HRM now has a more strategic function and attempts to align HR practices with the vision, mission and goals of the company.
