Skip to main content
  • Foundation
  • Executive network
  • CEO Circle
  • Enterprise Solutions
  • Linkage Logo
  • Store
  • Sign In
  • Account
    • My Account
    • Logout
    • Global
    • India
    • MENA
SHRM
About
Book a Speaker
Join Today
Renew
Rejoin Now
Renew
  • Membership
  • Certification
    Certification

    Smiling asian student studying in library with laptop books doing online research for coursework, making notes for essay homework assignment, online education e-learning concept
    Get Certified!

    Be recognized as an HR leader with your SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP credential.

    • How to Get Certified

      Demonstrate your ability to apply HR principles to real-life situations. No other HR certification compares.

      • How to Get Certified
      • Eligibility Criteria
      • Exam Details and Fees
      • SHRM-CP
      • SHRM-SCP
      • Which Certification is Best for Me
      • Certification FAQs
    • Prepare for the Exam

      Give yourself the best chance to pass your SHRM certification exam.

      • Exam Preparation
      • SHRM BASK
      • SHRM Learning System
      • Instructor-Led Learning
      • Self-Study
      • Study Aids & Add-ons
    • Recertification

      Recertify your SHRM Credentials before your end date!

      • Specialty Credentials
      • Qualifications
  • Topics & Tools
    Topics & Tools

    Stay up to date with workplace news and leverage our vast library of resources to streamline day-to-day HR tasks.

    The white house in washington, dc.
    Executive Order Impact Zone

    Do not abandon, but evaluate and evolve. It is about legal, equal opportunity for all.

    • News & Trends

      Follow breaking news and emerging workplace trends.

      Legal & Compliance

      Stay informed on workplace legal updates and their impacts.

      From the Workplace

      Explore diverse perspectives from your peers on today's workplaces.

      Flagships

      Get curated collections of podcasts, videos, articles, and more produced by SHRM.

    • HR Topics
      • AI in the Workplace
      • Civility at Work
      • Compensation & Benefits
      • Inclusion & Diversity
      • Talent Acquisition
      • Workplace Technology
      • Workplace Violence Prevention
      SEE ALL
      SHRM Research
    • Tools & Samples

      Access member resources and tools to streamline HR tasks.

      • Forms & Checklists
      • How-To Guides
      • Interactive Tools
      • Job Descriptions
      • Policies
      • Toolkits
      SEE ALL
      Ask an Advisor
  • Events & Education
    Events & Education

    SHRM25 in San Diego, June 29 - July 2, 2025
    Join us for SHRM25 in San Diego

    Register for the World’s Largest HR Conference being held on June 29 - July 2, 2025

    • Events
      • SHRM25
      • The AI+HI Project 2025
      • INCLUSION 2025
      • Talent 2026
      • Linkage Institute 2025
      SEE ALL
      Webinars
    • Educational Programs

      Designed and delivered by HR experts to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need to drive lasting change in the workplace.

      Specialty Credentials

      Demonstrate targeted competence and enhance credibility among peers and employers.

      Qualifications

      Gain a deeper understanding and develop critical skills.

    • Team Training & Development

      Customized training programs unique to your organization’s needs.

  • Business Solutions
  • Advocacy
    Advocacy

    Make your voice heard on public policy issues impacting the workplace.

    Advocacy
    SHRM's President & CEO testifies to Congress on "The State of American Education"
    • Policy Areas
      • Workforce Development
      • Workplace Inclusion
      • Workplace Flexibility & Leave
      • Workplace Governance
      • Workplace Health Care
      • Workplace Immigration
      State Affairs

      SHRM advances policy solutions in state legislatures nationwide.

      Global Policy

      SHRM is the go-to for global HR leaders and businesses on workplace matters.

    • Advocacy Team (A-Team)

      SHRM’s A-Team is a key member benefit, giving you the tools, insights, and opportunities to shape workplace policy and drive real impact.

      Take Action

      Urge lawmakers to support policies that create lasting, positive change.

      Advocacy & Legislative Resources

      Access SHRM’s curated policy materials and content.

    • SHRM-Led Coalitions
      • Generation Cares
      • The Section 127 Coalition
      • Learn More & Partner with SHRM Government Affairs
  • Community
    Community

    Woman raising hand in group
    Find a SHRM Chapter

    Easily find a local professional or student chapter in your area.

    • Chapters

      Find local connections from over 607 chapters and state councils and create your personalized HR network.

      SHRM Connect

      Post polls, get crowdsourced answers to your questions and network with other HR professionals online.

      SHRM Northern California

      Join SHRM members in the greater San Francisco Bay area for local events and networking.

    • Membership Councils

      Learn about SHRM's five regional councils and the Membership Advisory Council (MAC).

      • Membership Advisory Council
      • Regional Councils
    • Volunteers

      Learn about volunteer opportunities with SHRM.

      • Volunteer Leader Resource Center
Close
  • Membership
  • Certification
    back
    Certification
    Smiling asian student studying in library with laptop books doing online research for coursework, making notes for essay homework assignment, online education e-learning concept
    Get Certified!

    Be recognized as an HR leader with your SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP credential.

    • How to Get Certified

      Demonstrate your ability to apply HR principles to real-life situations. No other HR certification compares.

      • How to Get Certified
      • Eligibility Criteria
      • Exam Details and Fees
      • SHRM-CP
      • SHRM-SCP
      • Which Certification is Best for Me
      • Certification FAQs
    • Prepare for the Exam

      Give yourself the best chance to pass your SHRM certification exam.

      • Exam Preparation
      • SHRM BASK
      • SHRM Learning System
      • Instructor-Led Learning
      • Self-Study
      • Study Aids & Add-ons
    • Recertification

      Recertify your SHRM Credentials before your end date!

      • Specialty Credentials
      • Qualifications
  • Topics & Tools
    back
    Topics & Tools

    Stay up to date with workplace news and leverage our vast library of resources to streamline day-to-day HR tasks.

    The white house in washington, dc.
    Executive Order Impact Zone

    Do not abandon, but evaluate and evolve. It is about legal, equal opportunity for all.

    • News & Trends

      Follow breaking news and emerging workplace trends.

      Legal & Compliance

      Stay informed on workplace legal updates and their impacts.

      From the Workplace

      Explore diverse perspectives from your peers on today's workplaces.

      Flagships

      Get curated collections of podcasts, videos, articles, and more produced by SHRM.

    • HR Topics
      • AI in the Workplace
      • Civility at Work
      • Compensation & Benefits
      • Inclusion & Diversity
      • Talent Acquisition
      • Workplace Technology
      • Workplace Violence Prevention
      SEE ALL
      SHRM Research
    • Tools & Samples

      Access member resources and tools to streamline HR tasks.

      • Forms & Checklists
      • How-To Guides
      • Interactive Tools
      • Job Descriptions
      • Policies
      • Toolkits
      SEE ALL
      Ask an Advisor
  • Events & Education
    back
    Events & Education
    SHRM25 in San Diego, June 29 - July 2, 2025
    Join us for SHRM25 in San Diego

    Register for the World’s Largest HR Conference being held on June 29 - July 2, 2025

    • Events
      • SHRM25
      • The AI+HI Project 2025
      • INCLUSION 2025
      • Talent 2026
      • Linkage Institute 2025
      SEE ALL
      Webinars
    • Educational Programs

      Designed and delivered by HR experts to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need to drive lasting change in the workplace.

      Specialty Credentials

      Demonstrate targeted competence and enhance credibility among peers and employers.

      Qualifications

      Gain a deeper understanding and develop critical skills.

    • Team Training & Development

      Customized training programs unique to your organization’s needs.

  • Business Solutions
  • Advocacy
    back
    Advocacy

    Make your voice heard on public policy issues impacting the workplace.

    Advocacy
    SHRM's President & CEO testifies to Congress on "The State of American Education"
    • Policy Areas
      • Workforce Development
      • Workplace Inclusion
      • Workplace Flexibility & Leave
      • Workplace Governance
      • Workplace Health Care
      • Workplace Immigration
      State Affairs

      SHRM advances policy solutions in state legislatures nationwide.

      Global Policy

      SHRM is the go-to for global HR leaders and businesses on workplace matters.

    • Advocacy Team (A-Team)

      SHRM’s A-Team is a key member benefit, giving you the tools, insights, and opportunities to shape workplace policy and drive real impact.

      Take Action

      Urge lawmakers to support policies that create lasting, positive change.

      Advocacy & Legislative Resources

      Access SHRM’s curated policy materials and content.

    • SHRM-Led Coalitions
      • Generation Cares
      • The Section 127 Coalition
      • Learn More & Partner with SHRM Government Affairs
  • Community
    back
    Community
    Woman raising hand in group
    Find a SHRM Chapter

    Easily find a local professional or student chapter in your area.

    • Chapters

      Find local connections from over 607 chapters and state councils and create your personalized HR network.

      SHRM Connect

      Post polls, get crowdsourced answers to your questions and network with other HR professionals online.

      SHRM Northern California

      Join SHRM members in the greater San Francisco Bay area for local events and networking.

    • Membership Councils

      Learn about SHRM's five regional councils and the Membership Advisory Council (MAC).

      • Membership Advisory Council
      • Regional Councils
    • Volunteers

      Learn about volunteer opportunities with SHRM.

      • Volunteer Leader Resource Center
Join Today
Renew
Rejoin Now
Renew
  • Store
    • Global
    • India
    • MENA
  • About
  • Book a Speaker
  • Foundation
  • Executive network
  • CEO Circle
  • Enterprise Solutions
  • Linkage Logo
SHRM
Sign In
  • Account
    • My Account
    • Logout
Close

  1. Topics & Tools
  2. Workplace News & Trends
  3. Employee Relations
  4. Why You Should Let Employees Personalize Their Job Descriptions
Share
  • Linked In
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus convallis sem tellus, vitae egestas felis vestibule ut.


Error message details.

Copy button
Reuse Permissions

Request permission to republish or redistribute SHRM content and materials.


Learn More
News

Why You Should Let Employees Personalize Their Job Descriptions

It will help them feel more connected to their work

May 31, 2018 | Vivek Bapat

A person is sitting in a cubicle.


Editor's Note: SHRM has partnered with Harvard Business Review to bring you relevant articles on key HR topics and strategies.

We live in an increasingly personalized society. We choose individualized playlists instead of radio stations. We self-select our news sources and our TV shows. Our cars have infinitely adjustable seats and telescopic steering. Everything is geared, just for us.

Then we have job descriptions.

In most corporate structures, today, recruitment for a position generally means starting with a formal list of tasks — the standardized job description — and hiring someone who can make a convincing case that they would perform each one.

As time goes on, people get stuck in these pre-defined roles, and, if growth opportunities aren't available, they disengage. Although concerned leaders try to address this problem in many ways — teamwork exercises, mentorship, perks, innovative office spaces, and incentive programs — their solutions miss a simple but pivotal point: Employees are engaged by engaging jobs.

In my experience leading and managing teams over two decades, I've found that job personalization — that is, fitting jobs to employees rather than fitting employees to jobs — is one of the best ways to maximize engagement.

Job personalization is best applied when there are clear inflection points: when career trajectories are stalled, during corporate restructuring, or in recruiting for open positions. I've also found that it works best with individuals who bring new and growth-minded perspectives.

If you think one of your direct reports is prime for job personalization, I suggest beginning the process with a true-north conversation. Ask the person to describe themselves and their career, and listen closely. What are they especially good at? What gets them excited about their career successes? What kinds of responsibilities have they not sought? Which ones did they seem to talk around or emphasize less? What you're looking for is how their skills (professional), their passions (personal), and their value (as perceived by the organization) intersect.

For these conversations to work, you need to have a growth mindset as well. What is my colleague really passionate about and good at? And, more importantly, is it possible to create a role for them that accelerates their personal progression while also benefiting the organization? These conversations aren't easy and require significant self-reflection and coaching.

I've found that when creating new jobs around individuals, it is necessary to approach each situation based on the personality of the person you're trying to help. In my experience, job creation typically is best applied to three types of personas: the altruistic, the big thinkers, and the creatives. Each persona requires a different approach.

Make Helping Others a Core Responsibility for the Altruistic

In every organization, you will find a few employees who display a sense of unselfish service towards others. For example, my colleague Silvia, who works in public relations, often goes out of her way to welcome and mentor new colleagues.

Altruistic individuals like Sylvia may not hold formal power, but they are well-respected by their colleagues and have a lot of influence as a result.

Leaders can help these employees by making their "fringe" activities a core part of their job responsibilities. After I had a true-north discussion with Sylvia, for example, it was clear that her innate skills in networking, presenting, facilitating, and mentoring could provide a lot of value for the company, which had just initiated a new leadership development program. In this case, Sylvia's passion aligned with the goals of the organization, so we jointly crafted a roadmap for Silvia to learn more about leadership development while gaining career counseling skills — all while pursuing her current role in PR.

Establish Clear Goals for the Big Thinkers

While every organization wants big thinkers on their teams, it's no secret that big thinkers struggle with the traditional organizational constructs that can stifle their ideas. Big thinkers are dreamers and might typically struggle with details, trivial conversations, organizational politics, processes and decision flows. While they are natural candidates for job personalization, leaders should design clear goals – as well as a safety net that allows for failures.

This was the story with Amanda. After her position was lost in a reshuffling, I invited Amanda to join my team. Having worked with her on other projects, I knew that she was passionate about bold ideas. Unfortunately, because she had found herself in tactical, traditional roles, many others found her ideas to be too far-fetched, impractical, or politically incorrect. After having a true-north discussion, Amanda and I realized that her passion and skills aligned best with the topic of corporate purpose.

This was a big area to explore, so the key was establish clear goals. Since Amanda was flying solo, in a sense, we created an outreach program to identify like-minded individuals with a similar passion across different parts of the company — from sales, to product development, to services. We ideated constantly.

We had several pushbacks and failures. But, over time, the ideas resonated with many employees, people began contributing to the initiative going above and beyond their day jobs. Over time, the team created an informal purpose-driven network to keep the collaboration growing. All these actions were finally amplified and recognized, when the company decided to make purpose a central theme of their brand strategy. Amanda is now a recognized and sought after leader in her own right.

Create New Positions for the Creatives

Creativity is the heartbeat of progress. Yet, as organizations develop over time, even the jobs that require the most creative thinking tend to become fixed and rigid. When recruiting for these areas, leaders can create new opportunities for individuals by exercising flexibility in co-defining roles for creatives that are synched with their creative vision of the future.

Recently a member of my team left to take on a different position in the company. As we interviewed for a replacement, we found many candidates who looked to be perfect matched for what the position as described, but very few had a clear-eyed view about what the position could be.

Joe wasn't a perfect fit on paper, but during the interview process he painted a new creative vision, different from one we had before. Ultimately, we created a new position that was custom designed for that vision, and also harmonized with where the team was going.

Of course, molding jobs to people can't result in everyone taking on plum tasks and rejecting the others, or disengaging entirely and rejecting them all like Bartleby the scrivener, in the famous short story by Herman Melville, whose response to every request is, "I would prefer not to." That's where management skill comes in: across the team we create a blend of responsibilities that gets everything done. We customize without catering to prima donnas.

And some jobs clearly do not lend themselves to molding around the person. A position operating a particular piece of equipment or exercising a particular skill does not allow for much latitude . . . which is perhaps why those jobs are the ones most rapidly lost to advanced AI and robotics.

Millions of jobs, though, are not fixed — we just treat them like they are. Rather than simply handing an employee the same set of tasks his or her predecessor had done, managers at every level need to fine-tune. As the Wharton professor Peter Cappelli has recognized about retention, the new art of management is built around personalization.

Workplace customization has its challenges. It's a lot easier to draw an org chart and expect every hire to fill a box. It can be especially uncomfortable if adding a new team member, especially if tasks and responsibilities ripple to other team members. And even as you customize, you need to see the big picture — the most engaging job for some people may simply not help meet the larger goal; there's a fundamental mismatch.

Over time, however, job personalization will create more effective teams. It will allow managers to place a premium on hiring for talent and intelligence despite some possible gaps in experience. And, I believe, the Gallup pollsters will find that it will change the direction of employee engagement.

Vivek Bapat is the SVP and Head of Marketing and Communications Strategy at SAP. He partners with senior business leaders and global influencers to develop brand, content, customer and employee engagement strategies with impact. Follow him on Twitter @vivek_bapat. 

This article is reprinted from Harvard Business Review with permission. ©2018. All rights reserved.

Employee Engagement
Employee Relations
Organizational & Employee Development

Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace

​An organization run by AI is not a futuristic concept. Such technology is already a part of many workplaces and will continue to shape the labor market and HR. Here's how employers and employees can successfully manage generative AI and other AI-powered systems.



Related Content

Kelly Dobbs Bunting speaks onstage at SHRM24
(opens in a new tab)
News
Why AI+HI Is Essential to Compliance

HR must always include human intelligence and oversight of AI in decision-making in hiring and firing, a legal expert said at SHRM24. She added that HR can ensure compliance by meeting the strictest AI standards, which will be in Colorado’s upcoming AI law.

(opens in a new tab)
News
A 4-Day Workweek? AI-Fueled Efficiencies Could Make It Happen

The proliferation of artificial intelligence in the workplace, and the ensuing expected increase in productivity and efficiency, could help usher in the four-day workweek, some experts predict.

(opens in a new tab)
News
How One Company Uses Digital Tools to Boost Employee Well-Being

Learn how Marsh McLennan successfully boosts staff well-being with digital tools, improving productivity and work satisfaction for more than 20,000 employees.

HR Daily Newsletter

Stay up to date with the latest HR news, trends, and expert advice each business day.

Success title

Success caption

Manage Subscriptions
  • About SHRM
  • Careers at SHRM
  • Press Room
  • Contact SHRM
  • Book a SHRM Executive Speaker
  • Advertise with Us
  • Partner with Us
  • Copyright & Permissions
  • Post a Job
  • Find an HR Job
Follow Us
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • SHRM Newsletters
  • Ask An Advisor

© 2025 SHRM. All Rights Reserved

SHRM provides content as a service to its readers and members. It does not offer legal advice, and cannot guarantee the accuracy or suitability of its content for a particular purpose. Disclaimer


  1. Privacy Policy

  2. Terms of Use

  3. Accessibility

Join SHRM for Exclusive Access to Member Content

SHRM Members enjoy unlimited access to articles and exclusive member resources.

Already a member?
Free Article
Limit Reached

Get unlimited access to articles and member-exclusive resources.

You've reached the limit of 1 free article this month. Join to access unlimited articles and member-only resources.

Already a member?
Free Article
Exclusive Executive-Level Content

This content is for the SHRM Executive Network and Executive Content Subscription members only.

You've reached the limit of 1 free article this month. Join the Executive Network and enjoy unlimited content.

Already a member?
Free Article
Exclusive Executive-Level Content

This content is for the SHRM Executive Network and Executive Content Subscription members only.

You've reached the limit of 1 free article this month. Join and enjoy unlimited access to SHRM Executive Network Content.

Already a member?
Unlock Your Career with SHRM Membership

Please enjoy this free resource! Join SHRM for unlimited access to exclusive articles and tools.

Already a member?

Your membership is almost expired! Renew today for unlimited access to member content.

Renew now

Your membership has expired. Renew today for unlimited access to member content.

Renew Now

Your Executive Network membership is nearing its expiration. Renew now to maintain access.

Renew Now

Your membership has expired. Renew your Executive Network benefits today.

Renew Now