‘Two skills for the price of one’

From mobile working to the four-day week, modern solutions for reconciling work and private life are in vogue. One of these is job sharing, which brings two or more people together to work to a common set of specifications. The idea makes perfect sense at a time when the shortage of qualified staff is putting a spanner in the works for many industries. The PTO (Part Time Optimization) association has gained international recognition for promoting this model to companies.

Along with Holland, the Swiss labour market has one of the highest rates of part-time employment in the world,’ explains Irenka Krone-Germann, co-founder and director of PTO. The idea of creating an association to promote job sharing came to me after I did my doctoral thesis on part-time work. To date, 28% of Swiss companies have already adopted this model.

This new form of work will primarily convince young parents, senior citizens opting for gradual retirement or the younger generation fed up with a hectic pace of life.

Women: a priority target audience

By 2022, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office predicts that 70% of female employees will reduce their workload or withdraw from working life as soon as they have their first child. These figures show that it is still difficult to reconcile work and career harmoniously. Even less encouraging: in the same year, the proportion of women in senior management positions in Swiss companies was less than 30%*. Highly qualified women are therefore PTO's priority target group.

Some female-dominated professions had already adopted this way of working before the term became commonplace. One example is teaching: many schoolchildren have two reference teachers, who divide the lessons between them but are also responsible for classroom management. PTO is now promoting the model in the medical sector too: the majority of young medical school graduates in Switzerland are women, and the profession, which requires a high level of personal commitment, has everything to gain from part-time work.

A challenge for employers

“When I left my team management post, the only internal candidates to succeed me said they would do it on a job-sharing basis, says a Fribourg-based executive working in public administration. However, the employer preferred to have just one person at the helm and chose an external candidate. The recruitment process turned out to be very tedious.”

Employers are sometimes skeptical about this new form of work. In some professional circles, part-time employability is still seen in a pejorative light, as laziness or a lack of commitment. What's more, for human resources, hiring two people means higher management costs and more complexity in managing performance. This can hold SMEs back.

However, demand from companies for coaching in job sharing and especially in top sharing, a form of job sharing specific to executive positions, has increased significantly since PTO was set up ten years ago,’ explains Irenka Krone. For example, we have coached a number of federal departments in the use of this model’. The digitalization of society is having a positive influence on the phenomenon: these days, a wide range of tools is available for efficient coordination between colleagues. However, if the employer refuses outright, PTO advises against insisting: the project needs the support of both parties to get off to a good start.

Despite these organizational adjustments, positive testimonials about job-sharing abound, provided of course that there is good understanding within the pair. In addition to the advantages mentioned above, sharing responsibility for a job enriches the exchanges between two distinct visions. Each person brings his or her own experience and perspective, and problems are discussed jointly. What's more, it doubles the opportunities for expanding your network when the candidates each arrive with their own address books.

‘Two expertises for the price of one’: this is the catchy slogan proposed by the PTO association to promote job and top sharing. And beyond the ‘job’ benefits, the model is a new building block in the construction of a more inclusive, intergenerational and supportive society that goes beyond the idea that you are never better served than by yourself.

*CIRF study, 2022.