September 4, 2008 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Q. We are thinking of creating a “job share” position with a grants manager and grant-proposal writer. Any thoughts about the pros and cons of this possibility?
A. Your question raised some concern for Fernan Cepero, vice president of human resources at the YMCA of Greater Rochester, in New York. By attempting to hire a grants manager and a grant-proposal writer to share a position, he says, it seems that you are not hiring two people to perform the same job, which is typical in a job-sharing arrangement.
“You have to have an apples-to-apples comparison between the two,” Mr. Cepero says. That means paying the two employees at the same rate, giving them the same title, and classifying them the same way, as either hourly or salaried employees.
If you were to hire a grants manager and a grant-proposal writer and one of them was salaried while the other worked for hourly wages, he says, you would be mixing two different job categories. In that case, he says, the U.S. Department of Labor could force you to reclassify the job as an hourly position.
It may be that what you really want to do is hire two part-time employees, he says.
However, if you do want to create a job-sharing arrangement, then you should treat it like any other open position, says Shari Rosen Ascher, co-author of Share the Goals: How to Successfully Job Share.
“Hiring a job share is no different than hiring a regular employee,” she says. “It’s just that you’re getting two people instead of one.”
People who share jobs tend to be very productive, Ms. Rosen Ascher says, because of the flexibility the arrangement provides.
“When you are at work, you are 100-percent focused on work,” she says.
And though people often ask her, “What happens if the team breaks up?” she says that’s rarely a problem.
“Job shares tend to stay at their job longer because they have a loyalty to the company that would allow them to do this,” she says.
But because you’re hiring two people, she notes, “everyone has to know where they stand from the get-go.”
Treat job sharing as you would part-time employment, telecommuting, or freelancing, she says, and create policies that govern how job-sharing employees will accrue benefits like vacation, health care, and retirement, and how they will be evaluated and compensated.
“It’s the responsibility of the employer to classify job sharing as a work option, rather than an employee accommodation,” she says.
Mr. Cepero also suggests that you create a contingency plan for the unlikely event that both people who share the job are absent from the workplace at the same time.
“I’ve found that because there are two people, there’s the assumption that, ‘OK, we’re safe,’ never thinking both may at some time be out for whatever reason,” he says.
For more information about job sharing and other flexible work options, you might want to contact the Society for Human Resource Management, in Alexandria, Va., at (800) 283-7476.
