What are the secrets to a successful job share?

[LadyElizabethThornton]

I requested part time working a few months ago and have now been offered my current role but in a job share. So far so good.

The only problem is there are no job shares in my organisation. I’ve never encountered one and I don’t know anyone who has done one or who works with a job share so I’m starting from scratch in terms of how to make it work.

I’m scared of it all going wrong and leaving under a cloud whereas if I decline the job share and just resign, I’ll get great references and more than likely get a part time job elsewhere in my industry.

So, can I please harness the power of MN to help me make this work? Any tips for success? Experiences to share?

To avoid drip feed, my role is board level and has decision making responsibility across the organisation, not just my specialism. There are some statutory duties and contract ownership duti and sharing these scares me!

Has the the other half of the job share been identified? That's the most crucial.bit, you need someone with similar values and work ethic?

Will it be a formal job share or two parttime jobs to fill one role? It makes a a difference because you can be obliged to cover for each other's absences in a job share and if one half leaves that leaves the other in a precarious position.

The main thing is trust ime. That probably isn't helpful if they are going to recruit someone for you.

you need someone with similar values and work ethic

My ex job share partner and I had differences as well as similarities. I was far more maverick, her more straight-laced. She was a numbers person I was a words person. The biggest thing is that we never ever ever undermined each other, even if we'd have done things differently. People constantly tried to play us off against each other (we had a team) but it never ever worked because we were tight.

Generally it helps for you to find someone who you trust and apply for jobs together as a job share. You absolutely need to trust the person you job share with as their work will reflect on you.

Communication! If you are having to pick up where the other one left off then make sure you have an email update each week as to what's gone on and what needs following up. If you have separate workloads then I guess that's less necessary but it's good to build in some time to catch up every now and then.

I jobshare a role which involves reception and an amount of travel and accommodation planning. This was the first jobshare the company had allowed. The key to success is communication. I work the beginning of the week and my partner the end. We leave a detailed handover email at swap over and text any question at any time. We knew we had to make it work for the company to allow it to continue and we have. We cover each other's holidays and are hugely respectful or one another. Any task left for the other party is left with huge apology. I can't imagine that it would work if you neither liked or respected your jobshare partner.

I like never undermining even when we disagree. That fits well with the role we’ll be doing.

I don’t know if it’s an official job share or two part time jobs - I’ve never heard of this! I guess it needs to be two part times but I reckon HR won’t have ever heard of this either!

I’m going to find the trust thing hard. I’ve done this job for a few years and I know the pool of candidates they’ll choose my partner from, and none of them have done this sort of work before. Although a fresh pair of eyes could be valuable I know, it’ll just be hard to trust my baby to someone else!

Others in my organisation have done job shares including at director level. Simple stuff like one email address and calendar for “director..com” instead of the named person - handover time scheduled, agreed work areas and decision maker if you lead on different things. Play to each other’s strengths and be open about them. Possible hand-over time needed out of contracted hours eg 5pm on a Friday even if it’s your day off if you normally work a Monday-wed pattern so your ready for Monday meetings. Like others have said Trust and communication is vital. Hope it works for you.
I’ve shared a role before but we had specific patches so didn’t cross over our work load just spilt the patch/role into 3days each as it was bigger than one person.

No personal experience but wanted to wish you best of luck - and please let us know how it works out!

I have been managed by a job share and it was terrible as they both disagreed and gave me different views and task so I’d spend my life re-doing work that neither of them were happy with for contradictory reasons. It was so much better when one of them left and the other was just part-time.

I’ve since explored it as an option for me and for it to work, you seemingly either need to be as one (joint email, joint management no contradicting the other and effectively being totally aligned with total trust) or allocate tasks in such a way that you split your role into two part time roles, split line management etc. My previous managers were trying to do the first model but weren’t very good at being ‘one’. They’d have been better doing the second option.