Rosemary Baylis-West in GatenbySanderson’s Central Government Team was delighted to be joined by three successful job sharing SCS partnerships across Whitehall – Directors General Caleb Deeks and Gavin Lambert from DBT, Directors Caroline Crowther and Charlotte Spencer from MHCLG, and Directors Beth Chaudhary and Rachel Cooper from IfATE on Wednesday 26th February to highlight the opportunities and challenges of job sharing in the senior civil service.
Attendees included civil service colleagues who job share now, are considering job sharing in the future, and HR/EDI leads looking at the job sharing offer in their own organisations interested to hear perspectives.
Watch the full webinar recording and read the key takeaways below:
Benefits of job sharing:
- Managing a part-time working pattern while still doing a meaty job;
- Compatibility of working styles and deploying skills together;
- Covering more ground, dividing and conquering with a shared umbrella approach;
- Extra resilience while working at pace;
- A sense that you can be more effective than you might be working on your own full time;
- Enjoyment!
Building stakeholder relationships:
- Job share rather than job split – be seen as one person, be across everything and ensure that you both have relationships with stakeholders;
- Ministerial meetings tend to be at the start of the week so consciously look for opportunities for the partner who doesn’t work then to meet people;
- Set the rules of the road upfront – start every relationship with a joint meeting, an explanation of how you work together and what will be done separately;
- Make it seamless – share notes from every meeting, meet to discuss and amplify what has been said by your partner rather than repeating things.
Organising the job share:
Individual success is your shared success.
- The professional entity is the job share, not the individual;
- Total honesty and lack of ego is essential – there cannot be competition between partners;
- People working for job share partners have two line-managers – it’s helpful to mix up the one-to-ones so that direct reports can have time with both of you;
- It’s a sign of success if people talk to one of you and pick it up with the other;
- It’s also helpful if someone asks regularly for a meeting with one of you to ensure that they actually meet the other;
- Be clear that if one of you gives a steer, the other will back up; you will not be offering different steers; nonetheless allow space for the two partners to discuss issues where they might have different viewpoints before reaching agreement;
- Consider catching up with your boss together; do SLT / team meetings together if you can;
- Have good systems – shared inbox, MS teams doesn’t account for job share yet; have good handover folders;
- Think about how you use your shared day; handover from Friday to Monday can be harder logistically – both notes and calls work well – but not everyone finds that; a Sunday handover can be helpful;
- Make time for reflection – together and individually;
- Have shared objectives; consider doing some meetings separately with your Manager and sharing the feedback with each others;
- For performance reviews, write-up what you have achieved together, meet with your Manager jointly and focus a review on the how; experiment with gathering colleague feedback through your own surveys outside of the official tools;
- Consider holding job share away days for the health of the job share;
- Consider working with a coach on how you work together;
- If one partner leaves for whatever reason, advertise for a new job share partner; consider going full time for a while – adapt the role or adapt your working hours.
Applying for job share roles:
- Consider joint applications, a joint CV as a tool to use when considering your next joint move;
- Consider a joint presentation to a Panel to demonstrate to the Panel how you work together in partnership;
- The Commission wants to ensure that both people are capable of doing the job – so typically you will be interviewed separately;
- Remind the Panel of the benefits of job sharing – in built resilience, extra networks and prior experience;
- The pitch is for a little more than the price of one, they get a really good deal;
- Reinforce where you are complementary in terms of values, skills and experience; and where you are different.
Watch the full webinar recording:
Next steps:
If you would welcome a confidential conversation with GatenbySanderson about job sharing as a candidate, or if you are a hiring manager looking to increase diversity of thought and background through offering roles as job shares, please contact Rosemary on rosemary.baylis-west@gatenbysanderson.com