Job carving is the practice of creating a job tailored towards an employee's skill set.
According to disability job board Evenbreak, job carving "refers to customizing duties or creating specialist jobs for people with disabilities. The idea is to customize a job in such a way that maximizes their time and skills."
Job carving can enable employees with disabilities to maximize their productivity and effectiveness. Those who utilize this trade trick can reap a significant return on investment.
Evenbreak posited that "by (re)designing a position from the employee's perspective, we can begin to think of how the person's skills can contribute to the company, rather than impose a standard and 'fit a circle into a square' approach."
In addition, "employees with disabilities will benefit from customized roles, enabling them to maximize their most valuable skills without their disabilities getting in the way of productivity." Also, "organizations can take advantage of a wider source of talent by opening themselves up to a disabled workforce."
The Neuvoo job directory added, "employers can move away from traditional job descriptions to assign tasks to the 'best man for the job within their workforce while creating new job openings to match the specific skills of a candidate."
Furthermore, job carving "represents a win-win solution for you and your workforce, based on a relationship of beneficial reciprocity. This connection is built on the matching needs, strengths, conditions, and interests of a business and its workers."
All in all, "job carving can be a great solution to finding the missing piece that can take your company to the top." In essence, "tailoring a job to suit a particular worker's abilities, you may be able to find highly skilled employees that can showcase their talents in the tasks they are experts at instead of having their focus diverted to more routine functions."
The New Brunswick Association for Community Living surmised that job carving involves negotiating the following with employees:
Furthermore, they noted that the job carving process includes:
In more detail, it involves a process in which:
The Power of the Dream recommended using "a strengths-based approach – identify the individual's needs but also their strengths." They offered the following questions as a way to start doing this:
Organizations that have been the most successful at using this approach to employment understand that the abilities of their employees, when used in a complementary way, can not only improve productivity but also reduce attrition and improve retention. Large organizations and those with diverse roles and duties can often easily modify processes to improve the effectiveness of their employees. For example, a library clerk may be required to hold a valid driver's license so that she can travel to any location and open the doors - but if 90% of her job has nothing to do with these requirements, is it worth losing a good employee when facility personnel may be able to complete this task? The general idea is to be proactive in identifying opportunities to build better employment opportunities that prepare employees for success. That starts with removing unnecessary requirements or tasks that create barriers and add little value.
This is not to say that all jobs would qualify. Safety positions such as police officers, firefighters, and roles that require technical expertise often have particular essential functions that cannot be changed easily. Still, job carving is an option employers should consider improving access to employment, which − in an environment in which voluntary employment is sky-high − can be mutually beneficial for both employer and employee.
In summary, employers would benefit from collaborating with their employees on finalizing their employment details, from their duties to other work expectations.
When you craft a job position that hones employees' unique strengths and abilities, they can undergo tasks more quickly and efficiently. They can accomplish more, and you can achieve more results. Job carving can carve a workforce in which every component of your business works in harmony.