Population studies show that anxiety levels in the United Kingdom (UK) and other countries are at record highs, prompting researchers to suggest we are living in a new age of anxiety. Work-related anxiety has a long research history in organizational studies, most often as a strain resulting from stress processes. There is much less research on how employees take steps to manage their work-related anxiety in a more planned and reflective manner. We address this deficit from the perspective of job crafting by considering how work-related anxiety motivates employees to engage in job crafting practices to regulate their anxiety. Our data are based on qualitative interviews with 45 academics who reported experiencing high levels of work anxiety, working in seven UK business schools/schools of management. We found that academics engaged in the job crafting practices of physical/psychological distancing, seeking reassurance, uncertainty reduction and introducing controls, and that these practices were of mixed effectiveness in addressing anxiety. Our findings are relevant to employees in different occupational groups.
