It’s a match! How two job sharers have made a successful partnership
Published: 26 Sep 2024
Lisa Watch and Rhiannon Clapperton job share the role of Director of Policy and Communications at Kinship, the national charity that supports and advocates for kinship carers in England and Wales. Lisa and Rhiannon have been successfully job sharing senior roles together for the past five years, so we spoke to them about what makes a successful match and what they have discovered about job shares since working as partners.
What was your main motivation for wanting to work as a job share?
Lisa: For me, it was about trying to hold down a senior role in various part-time configurations, but always feeling compromised, like I was letting someone down, either in the role or at home. I wanted to pursue a job share for a while, but it was difficult to find an organisation willing to support it or the right job share partner, so it wasn’t something I could do quickly.
How did your partnership come about? What was the process?
Rhiannon: I’d recently returned from maternity leave when I was promoted into a full-time role and was asked, ‘How do you propose this will work?’ I felt like it was a brilliant opportunity to take on a more senior position while also having someone to learn from and collaborate with. I built a business case for a job share and reached out to a job share at Age UK in a similar role to gain some insights. We were fortunate that the organisation was forward-thinking enough to support job shares, but there was no established process in place.
The focus was not only on the skills needed for the job but also on how well you work together, whether you ‘click,’ your working style, and your values. I was tasked with leading the recruitment for a job share partner. While I knew on paper what the role entailed, the challenge was articulating how we would work together in practice. We had previously worked within the same sector, and as soon as Lisa got in touch, I felt immediately optimistic that it could work out.
What’s important in finding a suitable match?
Lisa: I think it’s become more apparent over the years what’s truly important and how fortunate we are to have found it, because it’s not an easy thing. I’d say values are such an important starting point; how you make decisions, how you manage people, how you approach situations, for example. Working style is also crucial; you need a clear understanding of the skills you’re looking for and ensure they’re either in sync or complementary.
You really have to trust each other and trust each other’s judgement, so you can switch off completely. They might still make slightly different decisions than you would, but you have to trust their reasoning. You also trust that you’re in it together, not in competition. When there’s a success, it’s a shared success, and when there’s a failure, it’s a joint failure. If you feel like you’re in competition, it’ll never work as a job share.
Rhiannon: I think it’s a combination of what’s there organically and what you build on it. It’s about having the trust to make mistakes, to be transparent and honest, and to be vulnerable if necessary, knowing that the other person’s intentions are always rooted in support and collaboration. We don’t need to approach our handover day with a sugar-coated version of things. Especially at a senior level, where there are many competing priorities, being able to be honest, creative, and to check and challenge each other comes with that trust.
And it’s cyclical—the more trust you have, the more you build. But you need a solid foundation from the outset
Have you noticed any difference in flexible working at your organisation after seeing your successful job share?
Lisa: Everyone we’ve worked with has given really positive feedback, and I think it’s inspired people to see that there are different ways of making it work, giving confidence both internally and externally that flexible arrangements can be successful.
Rhiannon: Within our team and organisation, we have a range of flexible working arrangements. One thing I’ve noticed is that, when we started, job shares were quite rare, but I think we’ve been part of the normalisation process, as people can see first-hand how it works. There’s also been an interesting evolution for us. When we began our job share, a lot of time and effort went into helping people understand how to work with us. Now, after settling into the arrangement and being at the organisation for some time, the focus on ensuring people know how to work with us has lessened, which helps make it feel more normal.
Are you able to ‘switch-off’ on the days you’re not working?
Lisa: Yes, that’s the significant benefit from a personal perspective. I found it incredibly stressful when I was working part-time, and whenever I wasn’t at work, I’d still feel anxious about it. One experience that always comes to mind is trying to sign off a video about sexual abuse for a high-profile charity while sitting in a ball pit at a playcentre, because it had to be done on my day off. That was when I realised, this isn’t working.
Rhiannon: We’re always very respectful of the fact that the reason we work this way is to enable us to switch off from work. But we’ve also learnt from experience that sometimes there are things to clarify, especially with the nuances of a conversation where you think, ‘I just need to be sure.’ We’re also invested in making our partnership work really well. When it comes to things like holidays, we’re on the same page that the person on leave is not contactable because they’re spending time with their family, so we make decisions and move forward.
What challenges are there operationally and how do you work with them?
Lisa: The biggest challenge is the handover, because the volume of work that happens when one of us is off is vast. Project management tools can really help, but it’s the nuances of conversations that matter the most. There’s a lot of detail to hand over, which we manage via email and through conversations. I think the time this takes is often underestimated.
There are different ways to approach job shares. Given the fast-moving nature of our work, we’ve chosen to cover everything together rather than splitting it into projects, which means there’s a lot of information to pass on. However, having worked together for so long, we understand each other’s language
How can we help get rid of the stigma around part-time working?
Lisa: I think a lot of it is about reframing job shares to highlight the benefits to the organisation. Job shares offer a unique set of advantages: you have two minds working on everything, which generally enhances the quality of the work; you gain access to two sets of contacts and relationships; and the level of accountability is higher, as no one in a standard role would be as across the details in the same way. Job shares also drive a higher level of deliverability because there isn’t the same winding down on a Friday. I’m always mindful not to leave things for Rhiannon on a Monday, so if anything, I’m winding up!
Rhiannon: As women, we’re overrepresented among part-time workers, and I’ve had many women early in their careers express that seeing Lisa and me reach a senior level has helped them realise that working part-time doesn’t have to curtail their ambition.
A job share is a significant enabler in moving away from the notion that part-time working is a barrier to showcasing what you have to offer. The more of us there are in job shares, the more women will advance.
You’re on your third job share together, how has each move come about?
Rhiannon: Having a really open relationship has allowed us to communicate our thoughts as they emerge, and each time, we’ve reached similar conclusions about when we’ve achieved the depth and breadth of what we want to accomplish for the organisation. Applying for a job jointly takes a lot of effort, and when you interview together, you develop a good rhythm for navigating these processes.
Rhiannon and Lisa’s top tips for a successful job share partnership
- Think about your values and what drives you in your work, and really consider how a potential match aligns with you.
- Get to know each other to gauge chemistry before you commit; don’t assume that just because it looks good on paper, it will work.
- Work out the practicalities and how you’re going to divide the tasks. Don’t underestimate the effort needed for the handover.
- Invest in your relationship, as well as in the systems and processes, to ensure you’re working effectively as a partnership.
- Alongside this, don’t be apologetic about working as a job share. You need to put in the effort to fully realise its benefits, but when you do, it brings numerous advantages to the organisation. In terms of fostering cultures that enable flexible working, I think it’s important to take pride in what job shares can offer