Celebrating Flexible Working Day 2025

Ahead of National Flexible Working Day on 21st, we’ve been reflecting on the power of flexible working – and what flexible working truly means. For us, flexibility means choice – and jobsharing has been transformational in terms of allowing us to do roles that challenge and stimulate us

Jobsharing is an untapped, but transformational way of working - enabling part-time work in all roles.

But what brought us to jobsharing in the first place?

 Our entry into jobsharing is quite a common story – based initially on a desire to work part-time after having kids. Prior to having children, both Chloe and I had full-on full-time jobs in finance at Asda. We loved work, were highly ambitious and determined to succeed. After having kids, we retained the same level of ambition and drive, but couldn’t reconcile the time investment in work needed to work full time (which was often 60 hour weeks!) with the family life we wanted to live.

As a result, we both went part-time. For me (Laura), that included various work patterns over the years immediately following the birth of my kids. I did 3.5 days as Internal Audit Director at Asda – and that allowed me to balance my own diary and team priorities to ensure I actually did work 3.5 days per week. However, after a role move into a bigger team, with more reactive deliverables – leading the Finance Shared Service Centre, responsible for 160 team members and the end to end finance process operation for Asda – working 3.5 day was no longer an option.

I found myself working 4 days per week and, whilst it was working for the business, it wasn’t working for me. I have other passions outside of work – I love to run and cycle and I’m a charity trustee and NED. I couldn’t fit all of that in alongside working 4 days and raising my family and I felt like I was fraying at the edges. Then jobsharing came along – and it changed my life!

I started to jobshare with Chloe – a colleague I’d known for several years and had worked closely with in the past. I knew we were professionally compatible – with complementary skills and values – and we had a strong relationship based on mutual respect and trust. So we pitched the idea of a jobshare – and our boss said yes! And I don’t think any of us really knew what it meant or what it would entail!

For two ambitious, high achieving finance professionals, jobsharing changed our lives - both personally and professionally.

Making the case for jobsharing

We didn’t have to explain what a jobshare was to our line manager but we certainly had to explain it to other people in our organisation. So, if jobsharing is new to you too - put simply, a jobshare is two people sharing one role. The critical word here is share. It is not splitting the job in half and each doing half of it (that’s a job-split – which can be a great way of working if full week continuity isn’t required). Jobshare is sharing the role – sharing the deliverables, the successes, the failures and working together in a seamless way to get the job done. A jobshare requires excellent communication between the pair and it is critical that jobshare partnerships have an effective handover each week, to make sure they present a united front to stakeholders. As a general rule, someone who interacts with a jobshare shouldn’t need to repeat themselves or remember who they spoke to last time – the jobshare works behind the scenes to make that happen. It’s a bit more complicated than a standalone role but, goodness me, when you get it right, the power of the jobshare is amazing!

We didn’t have to “sell” our jobshare in to our employer, because they were committed to retaining us in the business and finding a way to make it work for us. But if we’d had to, with hindsight, this is what we’d tell them about why jobsharing is the way forward:

·         2 brains for the price of 1 – the single biggest benefit of a jobshare is that you pay for one role (or often, just over that by investing in a handover day and paying for 1.2 FTE)

·         Retention of top talent – realistically, this was probably the intrinsic hook that enabled us to jobshare. Without having to explicitly say it, it was obvious that if we couldn’t find a way to work that worked for us, our future at the business was in question. Creating flexible and part-time work that works is a key retention and attraction toolkit – particularly for women. 86% of women say they check flexible working policies before applying for a job.

·         Diversity of thought – by offering jobshare, you can increase your pool of potential talent – thus attracting a wider set of experiences and views into your team. More diverse teams are more effective teams, so tapping into this diverse talent pool is critical.

Amplifying the message of jobsharing

Back when we asked to do it, our line manager was innovative and forward thinking and allowed us to shape it in a way that worked for us. But we didn’t really know what we were doing either – in the absence of a template or guidebook, we used our common sense and worked it out as we went along.

But we soon realised that the skills we’d learned could help individuals and organisations leverage jobsharing to transform their talent strategy – so we founded The Jobshare Revolution to advocate for change and drive practical support to organisations on their jobsharing journey.

Chloe (centre left) & Laura (centre right) speaking at an event with the Labour Relations Agency (Northern Ireland) about how flexible working can drive economic advantage.

One key challenge for us was that when we started jobsharing, there wasn’t a huge amount of information out there about how to do it. Over the last year, The Jobshare Revolution has worked with an amazing group of passionate jobsharers to co-create a set of open source materials on everything you need to know about jobsharing (LINK). We want to make jobsharing open to all. We work with organisations to reduce the barriers to jobsharing – which are often as much about awareness and culture than practical challenges. We’re determined to change the world of work so that everyone can work in a way that works for them!

#FlexByDesign

We’re so pleased to be taking part in Flexible Working Day – with a particular focus on Flex By Design – because we see so often that roles aren’t designed for part-time work. But roles aren’t really designed for full time work either. It’s just that Monday to Friday 9-5 is the historical norm and moving away from that often feels difficult. However, with a collective movement to challenge the norm and encourage employers to think differently, we really can make a change and more flexible working really work.

To find out more about jobsharing, how it can transform your organisation, please do get in touch

hello@thejobsharerevolution.co.uk