Reimagine: Job Sharing

Have you ever been part of a job share? While it’s not a super common practice, it’s one way employers have offered flexibility for people who can’t or don’t want to work full time. 

A job share involves two people sharing the workload, hours, and pay of one full-time job. But how is a job share different from a part-time job? Why might it be more appealing to employers or employees than a traditional part-time role? 

As we continue to unpack the different ways people find and sustain flexible work, let’s talk about the pros and cons of job sharing.

In my book, Work Reimagined, I told the story of when I went down to “part-time” work after having children. I put part-time in air quotes because while I was paid less, I was still [largely] producing the same outcomes and managing the same workload – just in less time, and therefore more efficiently. 

Our workplaces aren’t designed around part-time work, so those who choose part-time often end up with full-time effort for part of the pay.

Job sharing, alternately, can prevent those who want to work less than 40 hours a week from doing more for less pay. That’s because one full-time role is demarcated between two employees, helping to prevent “scope creep” and ensuring that the full-time role is fully covered. 

This can offer the employee who wants to work less than full time real benefits over a part-time position that isn’t a job share:

• It means there’s someone else who is also responsible for fulfilling the duties of the position.

• It offers continuity 

• and, if done correctly, a sense of work-life balance because someone else is filling in the gap when they’re “off the clock”

Job sharing can offer real benefits to employers, too:

• It can help organizations retain top talent when they want to reduce their workload 

• ensure that roles and responsibilities are fully covered

But it’s not a silver bullet: it also requires coordination and could involve additional administrative tasks to manage two people in the same role. What happens, for example, when one person in the job share is more competent? How are mistakes handled? How are performance reviews conducted? What if there’s conflict?

Which gets us to potential drawbacks for the job sharers, too. It requires a good partnership, with open communication and compatible work styles. It also comes with a likely smaller income and potentially lower opportunities for advancement. 

None of those potential challenges are reasons to avoid a job share if it’s right for both the role and the two employees sharing it. 

But job sharing alone isn’t the ultimate solution to a sustainable workload. 

I’ve talked a lot about how, when a workplace is designed for maximum focus, engagement, and collaboration, most full-time roles can actually be done well in less than 40 hours a week. When your team is allowed to do their best work at the best time for them, busywork is minimized, responsibilities are clear, and management prioritizes outcomes over time spent on the clock, most jobs can actually be done on a part-time schedule, achieving the same outcomes, for a full-time salary!

But how can you make a job share work if it is truly the right arrangement for the organization and the employees? Clear communication, including clearly defined roles and responsibilities and ways to fairly assess levels of effort, a streamlined administrative process, and above all, prioritizing a good interpersonal fit between job sharers. While job shares may still come with challenges, addressing potential pitfalls early on can help organizations craft smooth job sharing agreements that benefit everyone involved.

Have you ever been part of a job share, or managed a pair of job sharers? What worked – and what didn’t? Are there benefits of job sharing that appeal to you or your organization?

Working Well/Living Well

MatchPace’s ethos is that we need to be able to work and live well. “Well” doesn’t always mean rosy or positive. Instead, it reflects the reality of doing good work! And the same is true for living well. Sharing each week how I’m living well reminds me I’m a whole person, with a full identity outside of work. 

We’re in full-on summer mode at the Knox house! Swim team practice every day, meets on the weekends (where Mom & Dad’s volunteer roles are more tiring than the kids races, if you asked me!) 

We have a few trips planned: Pensacola for a family funeral, the annual tradition of the Wayne County Fair, and in August we’ll head to Quebec - taking the kids out of the country for the first time! Stay tuned for reports of our adventures! 

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