Real Men Job-Share Too…..
The idea of a job- share booklet came from our coaching clients. They wanted a source of practical advice, which would maximise their chances of success, and help them anticipate managers’ concerns. We began our research on that basis, but found ourselves thinking increasingly about the wider benefits of jobsharing for a resilient and diverse workforce.
We’ve learned of an increasing range of people working in jobshares. The most common arrangement is between two women with young children, each working two or three days a week, but we have also come across:
- male/ female combinations built around childcare or eldercare
- partnerships involving both women and men who want free time for study, or for creative activities
- partnerships where each person is working full-time on a major project that needs joint and interchangeable leadership.
We’re told that 20% of enquiries to the civil service jobshare site now come from men. We’ve also recently heard about Will McDonald and Sam White, who jobshare a Director role which reports to the Board of international insurance company Aviva. These two men know they are pioneers but see job-sharing catching on as a great way to balance an exciting job with their role as job-sharing parents. They challenge the old-world view that “real men don’t jobshare” by pointing out they haven’t lost any ambition or commitment. They are simply working flexibly for a few years.
Jobshare partners typically assume the arrangement will be limited to a particular stage of their lives — though they often find they value the resilience it gives them and don’t want to revert to their old working pattern. If career progression is delayed, it is rarely by much — and careers are getting longer all the time.
Where job-sharers do return to full- time, they tell us the learning has been invaluable. They cite skills such as partnership working, boundary- setting and matrix management — and they often mention how coaching each other has made them better coaches of their teams.
Of course jobsharing isn’t for everyone. It may mean some financial sacrifice, and it definitely requires willingness to surrender control on the days when your partner is in charge. When we talk to managers, they say jobsharing works best where:
- the partners are equally capable and there is no risk of one having to carry the other
- the partners are equally determined to make a success of the arrangement,
- the partners trust each other. They park their egos in the interest of their joint success.
Very gradually, we are observing managers encouraging jobsharing, rather than waiting for the case to be made. These managers notice that jobsharing allows them to:
- attract and retain talent they might otherwise lose
- bring two brains and two perspectives to any challenge
- take advantage of two sets of networks
- maintain some continuity when one partner is ill or on holiday.
They also notice that jobshares are less vulnerable to burn-out, because their brains get regular breaks from the job, and because they support each other in getting through the hard times.
Why aren’t more employers trying it?
