The study design
The study examined a group of ten (DAX-listed) companies, such as Bosch, Beiersdorf, Unilever, Coca-Cola European Partners, Evonik and Vodafone. Among them was Daimler AG from Stuttgart, which is one of the job sharing pioneers in Germany. The carmaker has been promoting job sharing since 2011. More than 250 tandems are now working there. As our cooperation partner, the company supported the scientific study of job sharing – also to reflect on it within the company itself.
For the study, job sharers were quantitatively surveyed, but in-depth interviews were also conducted with the companies' HR managers and selected tandems. “As far as we know, the study is currently unique in existing research in terms of its scope, systematic approach and combination of qualitative and quantitative methods,” says our partner Dr. Martin Krzywdzinski from the WZB. We wanted to answer three central questions: How do companies design job sharing? How do job sharers perceive their work situation? And what types of job sharing can be identified?
149 people who work in tandems took part in the standardized online survey – and they generally gave a very positive assessment of their work situation. Over 95 percent of the respondents described the atmosphere and coordination in the tandems as good, and 80 to 90 percent reported a high level of acceptance and support from superiors, employees and colleagues. In contrast, the effects of job sharing on their own career opportunities are viewed more critically. 36 percent of the women surveyed saw possible disadvantages for their professional advancement as a result of job sharing; among the men surveyed, the figure was as high as 56 percent. This indicates that job sharers currently still have to contend with some prejudices. In summary, however, all signs point to a green light for the working model. This is because it leads to satisfied employees and collaborative work.
Job sharing types
Thirty-five guided interviews with job sharers show the different types of job sharing tandems and their impact on satisfaction with this working model and its success. We identified four types. They are referred to as “symbiotic career tandems”, “tandems determined by others”, “sparring partners in senior management” and “strategic alliances in senior management”. They differ in terms of the hierarchy level in the company, how they came about, different fit criteria, the division of tasks in the tandem and, ultimately, their added value for the job sharers themselves. Here is an overview:
Type 1: For the “symbiotic career tandems”, mutual trust, sympathy and a similar level of aspiration and ambition are important for it to work. They fully support the decision to job share and see it as a long-term working model. For this type, the main motive for job sharing is the issue of work-life balance, and they are usually at the team leader level (ages 30-40).
Types 2 and 3: In the case of tandems in senior management (ages 40-60), on the other hand, the strategic elements of learning, the optimization of decision-making quality, and the possibility of jointly filling particularly demanding and complex positions are emphasized. While the “sparring partner” type emphasizes the personal and long-term aspects of job sharing, the “strategic alliance” type is more concerned with maximizing job-related potential through the merger. For example, by creating new departments or merging existing ones. Sympathy and long-term planning are rather secondary. These tandems are also very satisfied with their joint work.
Type 4: The “other-directed tandems”, on the other hand, describe job sharing only as a temporary stopgap in the absence of career options. They are the ones who feel trapped in a “part-time trap” and tend to view their career options negatively.
This has different implications. Companies need to consciously address and build on this diversity of types (1-3). Behind this are completely personal but also corporate added values and thus different strategic objectives. The occurrence of type 4 should be avoided by means of a clean and voluntary job sharing arrangement. Job sharing out of lack of alternatives (e.g. when returning from parental leave with no other choice) is a bad start.
The right conditions
The interviews with job-sharing tandems and the companies' HR managers have allowed us to identify a number of conditions that need to be in place for job sharing to work. For example, the support provided by superiors – and communicated to the outside world – plays a particularly important role. Only then can reservations of colleagues and employees be reduced and time pressure and stress avoided. At the same time, managers should not interfere in the internal tandem's internal organization of work, as this can clearly lead to problems. It is also important to change the corporate cultures. The expectation that managers are generally available at all times and work 60 hours or more per week can lead to job sharers also being overloaded with work
but only paid for a part-time position. This is a recipe for frustration.
For job sharing to work successfully, trained and well-informed HR managers are also needed as points of contact and proactive drivers of the topic. They must help to implement job sharing not only as a “women's model” that contributes to a better work-life balance. This makes it difficult for men to apply for such a model and, quite incidentally, replicates entrenched role clichés. At the same time, you have to set up the right basic policies and practice targeted and personalized community management. It is you who, in the operational area, also advises managers who want to fill vacancies in a targeted manner on how to fill them in job sharing. Simply shouting into the forest that job sharing is now “allowed” without know-how, basic policies and, above all, drive to build up business will bring little success.
Job sharing and IT: ERP systems and matching tools
In terms of IT, the systemic mapping of a tandem is crucial. This is because usually only one person can be named, made visible in the organizational chart and given the corresponding access rights to data and entries for each management position. These restrictions were described as a major problem by almost all tandems. Above all, leading ERP providers such as SAP, Oracle or MACH are called upon to quickly develop practical solutions, because it cannot be the case that actually banal framework conditions such as IT access rights complicate the implementation of job sharing in companies. The biggest impact in terms of job sharing can be made by SAP, which is fortunately beginning to get involved in the topic of job sharing itself (currently 6 tandems), by adapting its own products.
Interestingly, our study shows that a matching IT, through which tandem partners can find each other digitally, makes little or no contribution to the development of job sharing. Without exception, the tandems we interviewed found each other through personal relationships or targeted live networking formats – even though matching software had been available for a long time in 86% of cases.
Conclusion
Job sharing is definitely more than just a “part-time model for mothers”. When done right, it appeals to a wide range of target groups and has numerous strategic advantages for companies. These include greater innovative strength, better decision-making, the breaking down of silos and hierarchies, systematic knowledge management, better succession planning and better coverage of very complex positions. Our study indicates that the prevalence of job sharing can also be a driver of cultural change in companies – a change towards more collaboration, flexibility and a culture based on diversity, where performance and engagement are not measured by the number of hours worked.
Many thanks to Daimler AG and the WZB for the great collaboration!
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