Should companies embrace job sharing?

Not so long ago, it seemed as though nor­mal­is­ing flex­i­ble work­ing and slash­ing the nine to five were dis­missed as wel­come but unfea­si­ble options for many employ­ers, with one in three flex­i­ble work­ing requests reject­ed in 2019, accord­ing to the TUC.

But as the gov­ern­ment plans to end the fur­lough scheme in Octo­ber and the coun­try faces its worst reces­sion since records began, rethink­ing the way we work is non-nego­tiable. It’s also become increas­ing­ly clear that work­ing full time is nei­ther prefer­able for every­one, nor a neces­si­ty.

That’s where job shar­ing comes in. Far from a new phe­nom­e­non, John Lewis, Lloyds Bank­ing, the BBC and the Green Par­ty are just a few of the organ­i­sa­tions with lead­ers tak­ing on joint roles on a part-time basis. As research shows that job-shar­ing schemes could be the key to sav­ing mil­lions of jobs lost in the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, is it time to make job shar­ing the norm?

How job sharing could save jobs

While the ben­e­fits of job-shar­ing schemes have been tout­ed by econ­o­mists, pol­i­cy-mak­ers and employ­ees for years, the idea has still failed to become a real­i­ty for the major­i­ty of work­ers.

There’s a strong argu­ment for why this should change. A report by the Insti­tute for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Research (IPPR) in August sug­gest­ed that job shar­ing could be a life­line for mil­lions of employ­ees at risk of los­ing their liveli­hoods as a result of COVID-19 as the fur­lough scheme winds down.

“The chan­cel­lor has said he will nev­er accept unem­ploy­ment as an unavoid­able out­come. But by end­ing the Job Reten­tion Scheme too ear­ly, and with no plan for pro­tect­ing jobs in local lock­downs or a sec­ond wave, that is pre­cise­ly what is hap­pen­ing,” says Clare McNeil, IPPR asso­ciate direc­tor for work and the wel­fare state.

“Up to two mil­lion jobs could be lost, not because busi­ness own­ers are not work­ing hard or smart enough, but because of con­tin­u­ing social-dis­tanc­ing mea­sures.”

[Job shar­ing] could pay for itself, as it keeps peo­ple in work… and so would sus­tain the economy’s pro­duc­tive capac­i­ty

In response, the think tank urged the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce a coro­n­avirus work-shar­ing scheme, through sub­si­dis­ing part-time work at a rate of 10 per cent.

Cou­pled with an over­haul of the uni­ver­sal cred­it sys­tem, IPPR’s report claims the move could save around two mil­lion jobs: “It could pay for itself, as it keeps peo­ple in work, helps sup­port incomes, both now and in the future, and so would sus­tain the economy’s pro­duc­tive capac­i­ty,” says Carsten Jung, senior econ­o­mist at IPPR.

Is job sharing better for work-life balance?

Beyond the imme­di­ate eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits, one of the more obvi­ous draws towards job shar­ing is its poten­tial to improve work-life bal­ance.

The civ­il ser­vice, which launched an online por­tal to help its work­force into job-shar­ing schemes, not­ed that those with dis­abil­i­ties, peo­ple look­ing into par­tial or phased retire­ment, and those with car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties could all ben­e­fit from job shar­ing.

Sue Beau­mont Sate, civ­il ser­vice senior pol­i­cy advis­er, found that work­ing in a job-share scheme made it eas­i­er to keep on top of her work­load as a par­ent and improved her pro­duc­tiv­i­ty over­all. “As a work­ing mum with a long com­mute, I found work­ing as part of a job share not only meant that I wasn’t com­ing back into work at the start of the week to an over­whelm­ing inbox, but it also enriched the work I deliv­ered and my job sat­is­fac­tion,” she says.

“It def­i­nite­ly improved our pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty and com­mit­ment to suc­cess in that role. It also enabled us to bal­ance a stretch­ing job with car­ing com­mit­ments.”

Beau­mont Sate is far from alone. The Time­wise 2020 Pow­er 50 list, which fea­tures lead­ers in part-time roles, includ­ed sev­en senior employ­ees from sec­tors as diverse as bank­ing, health­care and media.

How sharing a job can widen its scope

Oth­ers are keen to empha­sise that while job shar­ing can be incred­i­bly reward­ing, it shouldn’t just be seen as some­thing that can improve work-life bal­ance.

For Dr Jo Yark­er and Dr Rachel Lewis, who are both aca­d­e­mics at Birk­beck, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and direc­tors of Affin­i­ty Health at Work, a research con­sul­tan­cy, job shar­ing allowed them to embark on port­fo­lio careers and take on more chal­leng­ing work.

They can also be super for peo­ple who want to work in dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions and blend dif­fer­ent skills

Yark­er explains that it’s impor­tant not to pigeon­hole job shar­ing as some­thing that’s just tak­en on by women with car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties. “For us, we love our aca­d­e­m­ic careers and our con­sul­tan­cy work, and we’re not keen to give either of those up. Typ­i­cal­ly, when we think of job shares, we’re large­ly think­ing about women who want to spend part of their life with chil­dren,” she says.

“They can also be super for peo­ple who want to work in dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions and blend dif­fer­ent skills. It’s a chance to real­ly enrich people’s careers. This could be rel­e­vant to mil­len­ni­als too, who have shown they’re keen to take up dif­fer­ent areas of work.”

How can you ensure sharing schemes work?

While Yark­er and Lewis have found they’ve been able to work togeth­er seam­less­ly, it’s easy to see how job shar­ing could be an alto­geth­er more daunt­ing prospect for oth­ers. What if one per­son isn’t pulling their weight, for exam­ple? How can you tell your job part­ner that you’re not hap­py to answer emails at week­ends?

With­out care­ful plan­ning and reg­u­la­tions in place, job shares could quick­ly descend into mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­flict, caus­ing ten­sions in teams and a host of prob­lems for human resources depart­ments.

Open con­ver­sa­tions about pri­or­i­ties and pres­sure points have both helped the two col­leagues to make their work­ing rela­tion­ship a suc­cess, but much of it comes down to being able to trust each oth­er. “The over­rid­ing thing is mutu­al trust. We both do a good job and have the same aims in mind, so even if we go about things in a dif­fer­ent way, we both know we’re work­ing in each other’s inter­ests,” says Yark­er.

Rather than job shar­ing cre­at­ing prob­lems, it seems like it could only exac­er­bate exist­ing issues or strength­en work­ing rela­tion­ships that are already fruit­ful. And if the cracks in your team are start­ing to show, then isn’t it time to fix them?

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