Job Sharing Great Way For Mothers To Work

Here’s a voice-mail greeting that delights me because I strongly support flexibility in the workplace:

“You’ve reached the office of the National Association of Manufacturers’ director of media relations. This position is a job-share, with Monica Gliva here on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and Trudy Boyd on Thursday and Friday. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you.”

Job sharing particularly appeals to women with children because it allows them “more easily to balance work and family responsibilities,” as Gliva puts it.

With sharing, they have the best of each world: the chance to spend time with their families while advancing their careers.

Rarely does a company go to a valuable employee with small children and suggest she initiate a job-sharing situation. It usually has to come from the employee.

Nonetheless, it’s a growing work/family benefit: According to a study of 681 employers by Hewitt Associates, 29 percent have job sharing as one of their flexible scheduling alternatives. In 1990, only 18 percent had it.

In 1995, after working at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in Washington for four years, Gliva decided to ask permission to set up a job-sharing arrangement.

“My husband and I had adopted one child and we wanted to adopt another,” said Gliva, whose children now are 5 and 2 years old. “My boss, Laura Brown, vice president of communications and media relations, and I talked it over and worked out the details. I drew up a plan for handling every detail of the job.”

Gliva advertised in local publications for a person to job share with her two days a week. “I received from 150 to 200 applications,” she said. “I interviewed scores of moms and moms-to-be.”

When Trudy Boyd, now 37, applied for the position two years ago, she had one child and was pregnant with her second. “She was so good we held the job open for her until after she had her second child,” said Gliva, 38.

The job is set up so that each director handles all aspects of media relations involving policy issues that NAM - an industrial trade association with a membership of 14,000 manufacturing companies - lobbies Congress on.

Each director always knows where the other is and what she is doing. “We cover for one another - and get the job done,” said Gliva.

The salary Gliva earned as a full-time worker was divided between the two as if they were part-timers. “My benefits were reduced, but I still get vacation, health care and pension,” said Gliva. Boyd doesn’t get them because she doesn’t work the required hours.

The two have more in common than the job they share: Boyd’s children also are 5 and 2. The two live within 10 minutes of each other and share a baby-sitter. Their kids play together. When their family responsibilities demand their presence on a workday, they trade days.

It takes a bit of political savvy to sell the idea of job sharing and then to make it work.

“You have to come up with a very solid plan your company can buy into,” said Gliva. “You have to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. I was lucky to find a job-share person who, like me, is open and also has a strong work ethic. Our skills complement each other’s, we’re very protective of one another - and we’ve become friends.”

Trust is another issue of job sharing. “You have to be able to trust the other person completely not to stab you in the back, because you are vulnerable to that,” Gliva warned.

Gliva hopes more women will have the opportunity to balance work and home. “It can be such a wonderful arrangement,” the director said. “NAM urges its member companies to set up flexible arrangements.”

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