Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
TWO FOR ONE
Lilian Schaer loves running an agricultural not-for-profit group in Guelph, Ont., but also wants time to help her husband run his craft business. Jackie Fraser, who left that same job a year ago on maternity leave, wants to come back, but is also juggling care for her baby and helping her husband's fledgling food business.
So Ms. Schaer and Ms. Fraser approached the board of the organization, AgCare, with a proposal: Why not share the executive director's job? Beginning next month, Ms. Schaer will work two days a week, overseeing communications and project management, and having time to help her husband and do some freelance writing. Ms. Fraser will work three days a week, focusing on environmental policy, with time to help run the store and be with her child. The two will stay in touch by e-mail, phone and meetings.
"We really complement each other when it comes to skill sets and interests, so it's easy to plan who does what," Ms. Schaer says. Adds Ms. Fraser: "You can do a lot with a BlackBerry and working off-site. It's very flexible and now it's up to us to get the task done."
SLOW TAKEOFF
Job sharing is popular in Europe. In Britain, 54 per cent of employers offered it last year, up from 34 per cent in 2004, according to a survey by the business organization CBI.
As for Canada, two surveys in 2007 found just 14 per cent of employers offered it. A survey by Careerbuilder.ca found that 43 per cent of companies were aiming to deliver more flexible work arrangements in 2009; job sharing ranked as the fourth most popular option. Still, "practices such as job sharing ... are still not common work arrangements," Statistics Canada noted last year.
THE BENEFITS
"I meet a lot of candidates who want it, but Canadian companies haven't yet wrapped their heads around it," says Larry Brownoff, Edmonton-based recruiting manager for staffing firm Robert Half International.
For employees with busy family lives, job sharing can help to alleviate the work-home juggling act. And that "leads to greater employee retention and loyalty, not just for women, but among people with aging parents," says Julianna Cantwell, human resources consultant with Juna Consulting in Edmonton.
Job sharing can be an effective tool for easing people in and out of a work force, says Nora Spinks, president of Work Life Harmony. Someone returning from parental leave, say, could share a position with an older worker scaling back hours before retirement.
In this tighter economy, job sharing is a useful strategy to attract skilled, experienced staff, Mr. Brownoff says. And it gives companies more flexibility: When the economy turns around, or as workers' family needs change, employees could easily move to full-time status.
Workers are finding creative ways to share work, Ms. Spinks says, from two sharing three jobs, to divvying up hours so that one employee works one month and a colleague works another.
THE KNOCKS
So if workers want job sharing, why don't more employers offer it? One reason, Ms. Spinks says, is that, unlike decades past, employees these days have a wider range of flexible options, from part-time jobs with benefits to telework.
That's meant accounting firm Ernst & Young, for example, has seen little demand for job sharing specifically, though about 5 per cent of staff are on a flexible work arrangement, says Jeannine Pereira, inclusiveness leader for E&Y in Canada. Job sharing also involves some structural challenges, says Stewart Saxe, a Toronto-based labour lawyer at Baker & McKenzie.
One is often a lack of union support: Many unions prefer policies that focus on preserving jobs among longer-serving workers, rather than job-sharing options.
It may also prove more costly if employers have to pay for two full sets of benefits plus the extra administrative work for human resources, Mr. Saxe says. And in these cash-strapped, time-pressed days, no one wants the extra hassle.
Another challenge is finding the right partner to share a job with, says Norma Tombari, director of global diversity at Royal Bank of Canada.
Job sharing must be well planned, and needs clear job descriptions, says Juna Consulting's Ms. Cantwell.
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CLOSEUP: SHARING DUTIES AT RBC
Giselle Totino and Pamela Shaver have been sharing their senior account manager job at Royal Bank of Canada since September.
Ms. Shaver returned to work after three years spent at home with her children, now aged 6 and 4. She joined Ms. Totino, who has job shared for two years and was searching for a new counterpart after her former job-share partner moved. Ms. Totino also has two children, aged 4 and 2.
They divvy their workweeks (8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) so that Ms. Totino works Mondays and Tuesdays, Ms. Shaver works Thursdays and Fridays, and they alternate Wednesdays.
Their Mississauga-based job - assisting high-net-worth customers with everything from car loans to mortgage renewals - means the two touch base "constantly" through cellphones, conference calls, e-mails and a logbook to ensure the work flows seamlessly.
RBC has offered job-sharing arrangements since the mid-1990s and now has more than 1,000 employees participating, "many of whom are working mothers," says Norma Tombari, RBC's director of global diversity.
Caring for family members is a common way to spend the time away from work, she says, but participants also pursue education, volunteer work, or phasing into retirement.
Ms. Shaver, who volunteers in her son's Grade 1 class once a week, says sharing her job was the best way to ease back into the work force after being a full-time mom.
"I didn't want to be forced into making difficult decisions [about whether to work full time] so having this opportunity to come back was phenomenal."
Ms. Totino, who has been caring for her children and accompanying her mother to treatments for breast cancer, appreciates that she doesn't have to choose between her family and a career.
"Allowing me to continue my career and keep my tenure with the company, without impacting the growth of my family or feeling the stress of juggling both, speaks volumes [of the bank]" she says.
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How job sharing stacks up
Forty-three per cent of Canadian employers plan to provide more flexible work arrangements this year. Here's how job sharing stacks up:
Alternate schedules: 74%
Compressed week: 44%
Summer hours: 34%
Job sharing: 31%
Telecommuting: 28%
Sabbaticals: 15%
Source: Careerbuilder.ca survey of 286 managers and HR pros
Tavia Grant