OBMifying your life

Contriving your environment to contact positive reinforcers and appetitive stimuli to enhance your behavior and ENJOY LIFE using the principles of OBM

“Everyone at work has that ONE task that is the bane of their existence, right? Well, I do, and it’s completing my concentrated supervised fieldwork hours (CSF), which are practicum hours required to sit for the BCBA certification exam. I know it’s something I must do to become a BCBA, but it’s extremely effortful, has many unnecessary steps, and is very aversive. What makes it worse is that sometimes I experience burnout-related symptoms from these tasks, which negatively impact my ability to do the part of my job that I love, such as providing services to clients.”

If this scenario resonates with you, let me introduce you to solutions you can implement immediately to reduce burnout and increase productivity that do not require you or your boss/advisor to redesign your job.  

Working in early-career roles tends to offer less autonomy and flexibility, as does being a student in higher education. As shown by the Job-Demands Resource model, working in roles where there are too many tasks relative to resources (e.g., compensation, time, support, materials) guarantees experiencing burnout (Demerouti et al., 2001; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). However, there are ways to mitigate burnout in these roles by reducing the magnitude of workplace stressors. This helps reduce the impact of work stressors as they occur, and allows you to recover more quickly if you experience burnout-related behaviors. These mitigation tools are called protective factors.  

Protective Factors

Protective factors are behaviors and contingencies that can be implemented to serve as a buffer to stressors resulting in burnout (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], n.d.). Think of these as literal protective armor as you walk into work, attempting to shield yourself from the ever-present stressors in academia and early-career roles. In the behavior analytic literature, evidence-based protective factors include engaging in peer or supervisor support, workplace autonomy, Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT), job crafting, exercise, and burnout mitigation tools during coursework (Lawson & O’Brien, 1994; Slowiak & DeLongchamp, 2021; Szarko et al., 2022). 

From a behavior-analytic perspective, protective factors can be used as either antecedent- or consequence-based interventions, as needed. For the purposes of this scenario, let’s focus on job-crafting as an antecedent intervention to decrease burnout-related behaviors and increase productivity related to CSF hours. 

What is Job Crafting?

The creators of job-crafting sought to increase employee job satisfaction while maintaining productivity on required tasks (Wrzenski & Dutton, 2001). Job-crafting is a proactive strategy that enables employees to adjust certain aspects of their jobs as job demands change (Slowiak & DeLongchamp, 2021). Research shows job-crafting has effectively reduced burnout and increased productivity among hospital cleaning staff, chefs, and dentists (Wrzenski & Dutton, 2001). 

 There are many different types of job-crafting, including life crafting and leisure crafting, for those interested in increasing work-life balance. There is one research-validated assessment, the Job-Crafting Questionnaire (JCQ), that offers 19 ways to integrate job-crafting into your current work environment. 

Let’s refer back to the aversive tasks I mentioned at the beginning: completing the CSF hours in a timely and efficient manner (before graduating) to take the BCBA exam and become a certified behavior analyst. 

The easiest type of required tasks to complete for CSF are direct hours because if you are employed as a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT), you can count the hours you work as those direct hours. Indirect hours are a little more difficult to collect, as there are fewer opportunities to engage in these at work. What makes this even more difficult is that there must be a specific percentage of supervision provided based on the number of direct and indirect hours completed, and exceeding that limit makes any future hours ineligible for tracking. Finally, there are competencies, which are projects demonstrating fluency in task-list related skills, that must be completed, but there isn’t a specific deadline for each individual competency; they must all be completed by the end of the practicum experience, which is anywhere from 2 to 4 years.  

Types of Job Crafting

There are three main types of job crafting: task, relational, and cognitive crafting. Task crafting is all about changing HOW you do the task, relational crafting is about doing the task with others, and cognitive crafting is about changing WHY you do the task. I’d like to emphasize that you are not changing the required tasks; you are simply changing the types of responses you use to complete them. Please refer to the table below for examples of how to practice job crafting while collecting practicum hours.

If you are interested in reading more research on job-crafting, I recommend this article by Demerouti (2014). If you are interested in practice job-crafting right now and want clear examples based on your job role, I recommend this discussion piece by Berg and colleagues (2008).

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands–resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

Berg, J. M., Dutton, J. E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2008). What is job crafting and why does it matter. Retrieved form the website of Positive Organizational Scholarship on April, 15, 2011. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Justin-Berg-4/publication/266094577_What_is_Job_Crafting_and_Why_Does_It_Matter/links/542a720d0cf27e39fa8e925c/What-is-Job-Crafting-and-Why-Does-It-Matter.pdf

Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 499–512. https://doi.org/10.1037/00219010.86.3.499

Demerouti, E. (2014). Design your own job through job crafting. European psychologist. https://www.academia.edu/download/110172974/6288279066661254.pdf

Lawson, D. A., & O’Brien, R. (1994). Behavioral and self-report measures of staff burnout in developmental disabilities. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 14(2), 37–54. https://doi.org/10.1300/J075v14n02_04

Slemp, G. R., & Vella-Brodrick, D. A. (2013). The Job Crafting Questionnaire: A new scale to measure the extent to which employees engage in job crafting. International Journal of wellbeing, 3(2). https://www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/217

Slowiak, J. M., & DeLongchamp, A. C. (2021). Self-care strategies and job-crafting practices among behavior analysts: Do they predict perceptions of work–life balance, work engagement, and burnout? Behavior Analysis in Practice, 15(2), 414-432. https://doi-org.portal.lib.fit.edu/10.1007/s40617-021-00570-y

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (n.d.). Risk and Protective Factors. https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/20190718-samhsa-risk-protective-factors.pdf

Szarko, A. J., Houmanfar, R. A., Smith, G. S., Jacobs, N. N., Smith, B. M., Assemi, K., Piasecki, M., & Baker, T. K. (2022). Impact of Acceptance and Commitment Training on psychological flexibility and burnout in medical education. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 23, 190–199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2022.02.004

Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of management review, 26(2), 179-201. https://www.academia.edu/download/47010794/craftingajob.pdf