Information

Could you imagine working in a job or top sharing? Great, you have an exciting path ahead of you!

The term job sharing means two or more employees sharing a full-time position with inter-dependent tasks and joint responsibility.

The term top sharing refers to job sharing in positions with a high-level of responsibility, including the management of co-workers.

There are many ways you can approach your project

  • Apply with a tandem partner.
  • Apply at companies that are explicitly job and top sharing friendly. Or apply to companies that you want to introduce this model to. The latter is the most challenging, because you have to convince the employer twice: with yourself, your partner and the model.

Additionally, the industry, the nature of the job and of course your duo and your individual careers, play a major role.

How does your job and top sharing work?

Typically, two employees share a full-time job. Each of the partners thus contributes an agreed share of the working hours for the job. How hours are divided can be decided individually. The working hours of the partners of course must be agreed with the employer. It should be noted that the job or top sharers should only work together for a specified period of time.

In the usual cases, each of the job sharers receives his or her own part-time work contract. The partners can perform the same tasks in regards to the areas of activity or make a competence-oriented division of the tasks keeping each other informed regularly. All modalities of the cooperation are usually agreed upon in an organizational chart and in a separate agreement attached to the employment contract.

Prerequisites

First and foremost, the partners must get along well with each other, as they must communicate and coordinate regularly with each other. For certain tasks, decisions may be made jointly or the partners work on a project together. This requires a high level of social and team competence. In addition, job sharers must organize themselves well so as not to duplicate any task. Partners must trust each other and be willing to compromise. As they complete tasks and build their workstyles together,there must be no inconsistent approaches.

Discover the 10 advantages of job and top sharing

Job sharing allows part-time workers to hold interesting jobs typically only accessible to employees working full-time.

Sharing tasks broadens the range of activities and leads to innovative new ideas.

Working in tandem gives the opportunity to take some distance from work and be more efficient during working hours.

Working part-time allows employees to reconcile their professional lives with family obligations, and continue their education or other activities.

The diverse skills and experience of the partners provide greater expertise on demanding projects.

Having a professional partner can provide a different perspective to support good decision-making and reduces the feeling of isolation often expressed by managers.

In the case of an unforeseen absence or illness, job sharing facilitates the temporary replacement of one employee (by the partner).

Job sharing is useful for establishing new professional contacts.

Through information sharing, the partners are better-informed of company activities and as a result feel more integrated than traditional part-time workers.

Having a job share partner can build the confidence of employees returning to the labour market after a significant absence.

Discover the most important challenges

The way the responsibilities are divided can increase the number of projects handled compared with traditional part-time work at a similar rate of activity.

Extra flexibility is required whenever important decisions must be taken outside working hours. Similar to regular part-time positions, job sharing requires sound organisational skills.

Like any alternative model, job sharing must prove its worth, and the expectations are high. The partners may feel they are under a certain amount of pressure to prove not only their skills but the ability to make the job sharing model work.

At first, a balance must be found between the partners, which takes time. This process calls for the qualities that go hand-in hand with efficient job sharing: flexibility, generosity, confidence, transparency, ability to critically evaluate one’s own actions — Communication is key.

A procedure should be in place to address any potential disagreement on an important issue, in particular in management positions.

How do you get effective job and top sharing?

Despite the many advantages that job sharing can bring, finding a suitable position can be more difficult in some cases. This is mainly due to the fact that job sharing positions are rarely advertised by companies. If you are interested in such a model, the initiative must come from you and your partner.

Joint application for a suitable position

Should you be interested in such an arrangement, the initiative must come from your duo. We can support you in this, see Coaching (to link)

Sharing your job

You actually feel comfortable in your current position, but you want to reduce your working hours? Talk to your boss and make him or her the proposal to split your job between you and your colleague. On the other hand, you can of course also be the partner who takes over the position of a colleague.

How do you find your partner?

If you are interested in job sharing, you now have the opportunity to get help via various platforms on the Internet. Here you can virtually find and meet your partner to share a job. We offer you our match making platform www.wejobshare.ch. There you can sign up for free and you will quickly get some partner options.

10 steps towards job and top sharing

Define your professional and private objectives (family, continuing education). List your reasons for seeking a job share position; collect the information about the job share model by consulting web sites such as go4jobsharing.ch and read the testimonials.

Analyse your current job to see whether it could be shared or whether you need to look for a new position. Check whether your company’s HR policies, mission or vision contains references to alternative work models. Search for companies that refer to these models on their website and in their mission statement.

Depending on the circumstances, you will need some time to find your work partner. Set a schedule for yourself, including deadlines and intermediate goals and build in alternatives. .

If you wish to share your current position, think about possible partners within the company. If you cannot identify an appropriate candidate, consult existing information in the company or on networking sites like wejobshare.ch

Discuss the terms of your job share. In your discussions, take into account your different strengths and weaknesses, as well as the points you have in common. Negotiate and agree upon the specific details of how you will share the position: working days and hours and rate of activity. If there is already a job description, discuss how the workload will be divided.

Include arguments from both the employee’s and company’s perspective. Plan your sales pitch. In addition, prepare a list of possible objections from hiring and/or recruiting managers and prepare responses to address their reluctance (see list advantages linked).

Draw up a presentation on the details for your job or top share.

Arrange a joint appointment with the HR manager. Give each participant in the interview a copy of the documents you have drawn up. Prepare for the interview with your job share partner. Have an alternative strategy or new options available. You and your partner should have considered the possibility that your proposal may be refused. Be prepared with alternative suggestion.

During the interview, be professional and keep your objective firmly in mind. It is an unusual subject and every minute counts. Negotiate and if necessary, arrange a second interview.

In most cases, separate contracts are prepared for each co-worker. Avoid uncommon provisions or conditions concerning termination of the contract if one person quits the partnership.

Support and coaching of the tandem and for HR experts and management

Possible support for job-sharing applications and team support can be obtained from specialized consultants. A newly hired job sharing team could use the expertise of a coach to optimize internal processes on a day-to-day basis, especially in the case of top sharing. We also advise HR managers on the recruitment process and implementation in the first few months of a duo.

If you want to discover more, have a look at our practical guide and contact us for more professional support, info@go4jobsharing.ch or coaching@go4jobsharing.ch.

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