The role of mobile smartphones manifested in the job crafting behaviors of millennial generation professionals working in a public sector agency
Smartphones have come to play an important role in the way we manage and organize our work-life activities and responsibilities. Likewise, significant shifts in workforce demographics are prompting greater attention to the workplace needs of a new, dominant generation: Millennials. Yet, there appears to be a disparity in our understanding of why and how this generation is using Smartphones in their daily work habits that may alter their work and social environment at work. This presents a problem for organizations and HRD practitioners grappling between conventional wisdom governing the workplace; and the reality, cleverness, and resourcefulness of people using Smartphones for work-life activities. The purpose of this study was to explore these two forces from the lens of job crafting theory to understand why and Millennials use their Smartphones in their daily work habits and how job features and individual orientations regulate their perceived opportunity to use their devices to job craft. This study used qualitative methodology employing the use of ethnographic techniques, a three-tiered semi-structured interview procedure, and other items in the data collection and thematic analysis process. To inform existing theory, this study framed the analysis and results within the five constructs of the job crafting framework; producing 12 core themes and 24 corresponding sub-themes related to the use of Smartphones in the daily work habits of the study participants. A thorough discussion with implications for HRD research and practice are addressed in addition to limitations. This study concludes Smartphones do not define Millennials; however, these devices may play an important supportive role in individual job crafting, an essential cog in the wheel of their daily work habits and life experiences. Thus, a subordinate, but integral part in how these individuals satisfy their work/life needs, experience meaningfulness and purpose, make sense of their worlds, and their place within them.
Smartphones, Millennials, Job crafting theory, Employee engagement, Work identity, Work meaning
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign