Blogs - Margo Mclay

Job sharing: When two heads are better than one

In today’s tight job market, job sharing can greatly increase the employee talent pool, attracting candidates with highly specialised skills without the full time salary. There are a growing number of people who by virtue of family responsibilities or lifestyle choice, are choosing the flexibility that job sharing provides.

In fact, I’ve discovered that many employers who were once skeptical about job sharing are now loyal converts! This is because there are a whole host of benefits for both employer and employee in favour of job sharing, some of which include:

  • reduced downtime (since job-sharers can generally cover for one another);
  • enhanced performance by having two sets of ideas, experience and skill-sets;
  • increased employee commitment and loyalty (job-sharers also tend to stay in the position longer because of the increased convenience of reduced hours); and
  • A wider pool from which to recruit.

And job sharing is no longer limited to administrative roles. I personally know a growing number of men and women in senior marketing and communications roles who are enjoying high-level careers in job-sharing positions. Some of these people split their work between in-house job-sharing and external consulting, which provides them with the stability of a regular income balanced against variety of work and ongoing skills development.

Other arrangements are literally the sharing of one position between two people – one at the beginning of the week; the other picking up the overflow at the end of the week. Other approaches enable employees to work compressed working weeks (such as 20 hours spread across two or two and a half days, or split between the office and work from home). This provides flexibility to both employees and employers and allows employees to work family friendly hours.

Often the challenge is to find two complementary people with similar worth ethics and levels of experience. Some of the most successful job-share arrangements involve people who work well professionally, who get along personally and who keep the lines of communication open. Despite working different days, two colleagues I know made time to catch up for a regular coffee once a week to run through work in progress, to share ideas, discuss issues and to plan for the week ahead. Another dynamic duo who had worked for many years together applied for a full-time position as a “package”, impressing the company with their broader combined skills set and focus on teamwork.

But not all job sharing has to be literally “shared”. Other successful job share arrangements are simply budgeted for two skills sets (for example, one for media and the other for research and strategy), or for unrelated projects and assignments which might be shared between two people over separate, shared or overlapping days. This concept might be well suited for two people: one of whom might have a particular interest in a specific area such as production of the annual report. The other employee might take on the responsibility of the day to day operations, or the strategic planning. Both employees have the opportunity to focus and follow through on their respective responsibilities, which provides the employer with improved productivity, continuity and accountability.

One employee I know came up with a novel idea to split a four day week across two internal departments because they had two sets of skills – tone suited to communications and the other suited to business development. This employee was able to assist the organisation across two areas on a part-time basis and keep their skills fresh across both. It also suited the organisation as they were able to share the cost of that employee across two internal budgets.

In the past, these initiatives were largely employee-driven, but over time employers have tried and tested these various working models and are now attesting their success to greater productivity and an improvement on the bottom line. And those more savvy employers who have introduced flexible working practices into the workplace are now reaping the rewards through reduced employee attrition and recognition as an employer of choice.

If you haven’t yet trialed a job-share arrangement or considered alternative strategies to make it work better (and smarter!) for you, remember, two heads are better than one! You may be missing out on attracting some of the best skills in the industry.

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