job sharing???

[houseelf]

Does anyone here have any experience job sharing? How does one go about procuring such an arrangement? Do you find someone with the same skills and desires and then collectively pound the pavement for a suitable position? Or does one interview for a position and then tell the employer that she is interested in sharing the position? Or do you wait until you are on board and then approach an employer and extol the benefits of jobsharing?

I am trying to find some information on this for future reference. While I have found a lot of infomation about the benefits of job sharing, I have very found very little information about the logistics of getting it set up. Can anyone here help?

Kelly

[DCJenn]

Kelly-

I hope you find out! My co-worker and I are perfect for the concept of job-sharing, even though we have no reason to! Well, she has a one year old, but I don't hink my boss would understand that I need to spend time with Rascal and Petey. But should either of our situations change, it would be fabulous! I'm definitely better at the operations end of things and she's much better at the personnel end of things (my temper gets in my way!) I'll see what I can dig up from my mom who's a personnel person.

Jenn

[Phoebe]

I am not knowledge on job sharing, except for the benefits. I have seen a lot written about it in Working Mother. (A publication my husband receives for free somehow. I know he is not a woman in disguise, but probably just a person who the magazine hopes would subscribe for his practice or something, even though he doesn't have one).

Back to my point of this post, a friend of mine and a co-worker of hers put recently put together a proposal for job-sharing in their company. Apparently, they both have similar positions and were having babies at the same time. My friend was turned down on the proposal because their boss did not want to spend the extra money on the cost of benefits. For her, they both already held positions within the company and decided to try and make it work except for the boss not wanting to use the budget on it.

You raised a good question, Kelly. I wish there was more information out there on this type of thing. For myself, I am interested in working part-time. Most of the part-time jobs in my area (research) require flexible schedules including evening hours, which is something I can't do with my dh's unpredictable schedule and limited child care options. Job sharing would be an excellent resource for many people.

Jennifer

[houseelf]

I am actually a person works part time in a full time environment and there are a few issues to work through. I am blessed with a very flexible boss who frequently allows me to work from home as long as this arrangement doesn't interfere with the necessary duties of my office. This arrangement works because the bulk of my work entails researching and writing opinions for a judge. In other words, the majority of my tasks do not need to be performed from 8:30 to 4:30 at the Court house.

The problem arises, however, when I have to deal with individuals who aren't afforded the same professional freedom. Even though I return my voicemails quickly and write more productively from home, I get comments like, "oh well, you aren't in the office so I'll ask you when you stop in" and the question is completely answerable over the phone. Or, well, "I know that you can't make this because you aren't here, but...." This underlying hostility makes me CRAZY!

I guess that when/if I look for another job, I would like to try jobsharing to eliminate this problem. I want to keep my fingers in my field, but I want to also be considered a professional. I'm sure that there are problems to work through with job sharing as well, but I think that it would eliminate some of this negative feedback. I would love a resource that talks more about the specifics of job sharing. If any of you find anything, let me know.

Kelly