Lesley provides us an insight into her life working as part of a job share.
Job sharing is certainly becoming more common. More and more people are sharing their jobs and seeing the wealth of benefits it's providing them with! This week we're lucky enough to have a guest post from Lesley, a job sharing champion, who is here to tell us about her experience and how it's helped her strike a better work life balance.
My experience with job share: Lesley
Jobshares... A most alien thought to most people. I myself didn’t understand how sharing my job might work and how two different people with different workings styles could come together to make one job successful. Ten years ago when I wanted to reduce my hours, there were less people sharing their roles, there was less opportunities to share your role and people either had the choice to work full time or work desperately hard to fit 5 days’ worth of work into 3 or 4 with long hours to achieve that most magical trophy... your non-work day! But thankfully times are changing, people are proving that this type of flexible part-time working can work and successfully too. I believe that companies are starting to understand that it’s not just a benefit for the employee but also to themselves too.
A bit about my own jobshare experience...
My experience and knowledge of a job share partnerships was limited up until my requirement to want to work as part of one after my 2nd child was born 10 years ago. Having gone back to work full time after my first child I was keen to get a better work life balance after my second. The large company I work for had, at the time a small handful of Executive Assistants sharing roles and working a 3/2 ratio with no over-lap day. Luckily for me, my job share partner had already shared a role successfully for 3 years prior and the position with her happily coincided with my return. We worked successfully for 5 years working a 3/2 day week with her doing the 3rd day and once my son went to school it was agreed that I could increase to 3 days also, incorporating a day’s overlap. In my view, this became a real turning point in our furthered success as a jobshare. Being able to see each other once a week enabled us to strengthen our position and we’ve worked extremely hard to ensure our share is seamless, professional and just as good as any full time person. We were both successful at what we did full time and singularly but by pooling our knowledge and working together we’ve produced a very successful, highly rated jobshare team.
So how does it work and what are the benefits from my experience...
I can't endorse job sharing opportunities enough, not only does the person sharing get the benefit of a work life balance (in my case being able to do my "Mum stuff" 2 days of the week) that a share provides but the company that provides these opportunities also reaps the benefits too. Who wouldn’t see the benefit of two people’s wealth of experience coming together, two lots of knowledge and contacts and two lots of strengths, often being different ones being pooled into one role? I know some companies only offer shares of 2/3 days ratio and these also work well when a clear handover and working practices are in place. My own jobshare was like this on my return to work initially. I know that some companies don’t like paying for what is essentially a 6 days a week role with the share partnership working 3 days with an over-lap but actually the company I work for currently has moved to only this type of share. Seeing the added benefits of the overlap day, after all, we do get 6 days’ worth of work done!
For instance, in my experience we were able to take on a busier role, meet key clients and people we work for together, we are a team and it’s important to be seen that way. If we meet together the information is only given once and understood by both parties, we have clear system and processes to aid in less handover and next to nothing slips through the net. We are able to keep on top of admin, attend and give training and guidance to other jobshares, share experience, knowledge and mentoring to provide our company with outstanding, strong, motivated and happy shared support. We are generally off sick less because we have more down time and we require less cover as when one of us is out of the office the role is only ever uncovered for 2 days. My share and I have been able to work on guidelines and best working practices for the new returners and these are now being used in other parts of the company and at higher levels. Ultimately we are so passionate and committed to this way of working and are testament to its success we want to make sure that it remains successful and that every person that wants to, is able to do it without feeling that it’s to the detriment of your career or your home life. Jobsharing is very much a mind-set change. In a world where we are taught to be competitive with our peers you have to learn to not compete with your share, work together to be streamlined, a strong seamless team working towards a common shared goal to achieve your aim of successful part time working. I put my successful jobshare down to our shared vision and outcome, we still want to be the best at what we do regardless of working part time and we are both prepared to work together with that common goal to have our cake and eat it too! I cannot recommend this way of working more.
Thanks Lesley and keep up the great work! If you want to connect with Lesley, you can do so on Twitter via the handle @thegravesbuns