Job sharing is becoming more and more established in the private sector. Even medium-sized companies are slowly following suit. But job sharing in science? Many still consider this to be impossible. Because rigid civil service structures and personal performance evaluations based on publications make implementation difficult. But they also exist here: exciting examples and opportunities to establish job sharing! Sandra Weimer is a science manager specializing in equal opportunities in research networks at the University of Konstanz. She took a closer look and showed with her master's thesis “Shared Leadership in Science Management - On the (Im)Possibilities of a Shared Professorship”: Job sharing is possible! Even in science.
Ms. Weimer, in your master's thesis, you delved into new areas of job sharing. What did you examine in your master's thesis?
The master's thesis highlights the (im)possibilities of a shared professorship, a job sharing for professors. In addition to fundamental research on the labor and personnel requirements for a shared professorship, tandems were identified and interviewed about their specific model of job sharing. Since this field has so far been little researched, the method of a comparative case study was chosen. So I conducted interviews and compared the cases.
There are still few examples of job sharing in academia. How did the ones you examined in your master's thesis come about?
All of the job-sharing professorships are the result of a courageous and carefully prepared commitment. None of the professorships were advertised as job sharing, which reflects common practice at universities. The tandem partners already knew each other and had worked together at least on a project-by-project basis. This was the starting point for an intensive preparation phase for the tandems, during which, among other things, comprehensive concepts were created in which all aspects of job sharing were listed, right down to the potential exit of one person. This intensive preparation was a success factor. A second important success factor lay in the openness of decision-makers, such as the appointment committee, the dean's office or the university management. However, the employment conditions are sobering: all job-sharing professors have been appointed as employees at the respective universities and are thus worse off than their tenured colleagues. Not because of the reduction in working hours, but because of the social security contributions and the gap between their pension and the statutory pension.
Why do you think there is a need to offer and implement job sharing in science?
Job sharing can be an enrichment for science because it offers a real, easy-to-implement employment opportunity for a scientific activity. This would make it possible for a broad range of people to actually achieve top scientific positions – the keyword here being compatibility. Flexible working is also in the “nature” of science. Scientific questions and the search for answers are not limited by working hours. Doing science is usually not seen as a profession, but as a life-filling hobby.
Sounds great, but surely there is another side to the coin...?
That's right, the aspiration of a life-long hobby can quickly turn into the expectation of professors, who want their young researchers to be present at all times. 10-hour days are not uncommon in qualification phases such as doctoral studies or dissertations. Health suffers as a result, and so does the quality of science. Mental health and work-life balance are two aspects that the scientific culture does not do justice to, even though it could: after all, scientists are hired and paid according to the public sector wage scale, with predetermined weekly working hours. So the framework exists, it's just not being lived. Old patterns and a culture of presence continue to have an effect to this day.
So, on the one hand, there is a fundamental need for reduced work, but on the other hand, there is already a basic openness to flexible work in practice. Where can we find examples of job sharing in academia?
All examples suggest that job sharing is less likely to be implemented during the qualification phase of the doctorate and in the subsequent phase as a young researcher. During these phases, the scientific foundation is laid on which later career steps will be built. However, advanced researchers with previous specialization can also make good progress up the career ladder in a job share.
So job sharing is only for professorships?
Not exclusively. For example, one job-sharing pair shares the management of a scientific department at the University of Cologne. This tandem shows that job sharing is also possible below the level of professorship. But yes, in the context of my master's thesis, it was mainly possible to identify existing professorial tandems. Findings on this topic had never been compiled in a comprehensive way before.
You looked at four different professorship tandems in your study. How well did the collaboration work?
The collaboration between the tandem partners worked very well. The basis for this was the intensively prepared concept in which the participants explained how they organized themselves. All tandems were able to demonstrate that they successfully divided the professional and management tasks and took joint responsibility for them. The exact organization was individual for each tandem and adapted to the different scientific disciplines such as humanities, medicine or natural sciences. The division of teaching duties and academic self-administration was organized similarly in all tandems, according to an alternating model. The partners share leadership responsibility – decision-making and reflection are done jointly – although it is acknowledged that, depending on the focus, one of the two persons might have decision-making authority. All tandems value their model highly, as it allows them to gain opportunities that a full-time professorship cannot provide.
In science, a large part of the performance assessment is based on the quantity of publications. When two scientists come together in a job share, they fill a joint position, but they are still perceived as individuals with regard to publications. That makes it very difficult to pursue a career in job sharing, doesn't it?
For professors in a job share, this aspect plays a subordinate role, because by the time they are appointed to a (shared) professorship, they have come to the end of the fixed-term contracts. On the contrary, a job share can even lead to a higher publication rate, because the job share leaves more time for one's own research and publishing.
What is the best way for a university to offer job sharing in academia?
My master's thesis indicates that the attitude of the university management and the commission chairs plays a crucial role. If a university management is interested in promoting this model, the university regulations and statutes must be amended accordingly. The University of Bern, for example, has issued guidelines and a fact sheet for the commissions, providing advice on how to deal with applications for job sharing. This ensures that the goal is clearly communicated within the university and that the actors involved are provided with guidelines. Only then should the option of job sharing be actively offered in all job advertisements. However, the framework must be created first and all parties involved must be empowered to act.
This is a very interesting point, because it clearly parallels the private sector. Here, too, a critical success factor is to first or at least in parallel create internal company conditions and to enable the organization - in particular the management - to deal with the topic of job sharing before basically advertising job sharing or calling on the staff to form tandems. Otherwise, the call will fall on deaf ears. One important difference between the public and private sectors, however, is the fact that most university employees are civil servants. How does this affect the implementation of job sharing?
As long as civil service exists, universities should also consider the best possible employment conditions for professorships in job sharing. One example is the Technical University (TU) of Darmstadt, which primarily employs its professors as salaried employees, regardless of the new university lecturer's full-time or part-time preferences. The peculiarity of this appointment practice lies in the underlying financing model, which grants employees an identical salary to that of their civil servant colleagues (a compensatory allowance for the compulsory social security contributions that employees have to pay and a compensation for the gap between statutory pension and retirement).
Ms. Weimer, last but not least, our classic question: Can you imagine working in job sharing?
Yes, absolutely. I see the greatest benefit as being the collaboration on an equal footing, the constant reflection and coordination in decision-making processes.
Thank you for the interview!
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