Job share tips please

[SiameseCatWoman]

I started back at work this week after 15 months off, and I'm now 2 days a week. I was full time in a busy role, and when I finished for the week yesterday I really had accomplished very little.

I am working mon/ tue and job share will do wed/thurs/fri Does anyone have any tips to make this work? We won't physically see each other and although we have the same job we have responsibility overall for different strategic things.

Cheers!

As you have no overlap at all physically at work you may need to speak to each other on the Tues eve.

It may be worth booking an eg quarterly half-day - see if the company will pay for time - to review yourselves how things are going.

You both need to jointly own the job share and its success.

Make sure your colleagues know who is responsible for what - and what they should do if something pertaining to the other person's job comes up on one of that person's non-working days. Ditto your managers. I don't have direct experience of job sharing but my part-time experience has taught me that it's essential to make sure everyone knows what's going on when and who is responsible for what. Easier said than done sometimes but important to aim for nonetheless.

I job share but we have joint responsibility for all. That way we pick things up on the others days off. Naturally we do tend to 'specialise' a bit but I think the point of job-share is having a full time member of staff in the office to 'cover' all days. I have an email open to her all the time and just jot major things down as they come up so she is up to speed.

I also think that you need the odd catch-up day when you see each other.

Do you know your job share partner because I was good friends with mine prior to job sharing with her, so I kind of know how she works.

Thanks.

Id never met her till Monday, she has been covering my ML and fancied going PT too. We got on really well, and seemed to have the opinion about things, thankfully, and she seems quite good and not a slacker, which I was worried about.

We have the same day to day job, but strategic things have been shared out.

I can't see how we will cross paths, as it would involve me paying for more childcare.

My jobshare works really well, but that is down to us both working Wednesdays. This is essential hand over time in a managerial role. You need to decide if you are going to split the job into tasks, some of which you will do, soem of which she will do (imo this is not job sharing, it is job splitting), or if you will be "as one" and work seamlessly - this is what we do and it is easier for our collegues. Someone can coem to her on say Tuesday, she'll hand over to me on Wednesday and I will go back to collegue with answer on Thursday. She hands over to me in person on Wednesdays. I leave her notes on Fridays for her to pick up on Monday. We have 5 agreed headings of work areas "People Matters", "Finance", "Technical" etc so that we can pick out the issues easily.

We are also in a managerial role - and we don't have a handover day, I work 3 days and my job share partner works 2.

I think that it is also important to remember the positives - if I hand something over to her then very often she finishes it off better than if I had done it all myself 'two heads are better than one'.

In terms of catch-ups could you be paid for the day as overtime?

Only advice is to sort out that Monday Bank Holiday issue pronto. The number of times this seems to lead to ishoos is amazing. I can't remember the solution but at least let your jobshare know you know Monday Bank Holidays need to be sorted somehow - basically you covering for when she takes her day in lieu or something, I think.