Job sharing

The job sharing ( English job sharing ) is a work schedule which is based on part-time work based. Two or more employees share at least one job among themselves as a community . The partners in a group can set their working hours individually. As long as the working hours are within the framework of those for full-time employees, all combinations are possible within the job sharing group.

In order to share jobs, the partners must have good planning and organizational skills. It is also important that the partners get on well with each other.

Job sharing offers the employee the advantage of arranging the working hours and duration individually. For the employer, job sharing means a gain in knowledge , its retention in the company when a worker leaves , the synergy of the employees, more capacity when there is a high workload and the better possibility to replace an employee who has failed.

The increased communication and information expenditure as well as the difficult replacement of one person in the group are to be viewed critically. The last point is particularly important when a job sharing group consists of only two employees.

definition

Job-sharing is a legal structure that originated in the USA and was first known in German-speaking countries at the beginning of the 1980s; some form of part-time employment. By definition, this means a job sharing. This means that two or more colleagues share a job and a salary. The flexibility provided by any flexitime is usually no longer available; instead, working hours can be structured according to different sharing models. The classic form of job sharing is the half-day cycle.

Examples

1. Five employees share 4 workplaces. Every employee has 1 day off a week.
2. Two employees share one workplace each half.

Agreements can even be made that one will work more one month and the other the following month.

Forms of job sharing

Job splitting

Job splitting is the most common form of job sharing. There is a temporal division with identical task profiles of the partners. There is no need for interaction and cooperation between the partners, who are provided with employment contracts independently of one another. Job splitting describes a simple division of a full-time job into two independent part-time jobs. If an employee resigns, the remaining employment relationship continues. The employer must try to find a replacement. However, if he does not find one, he can issue a change notice (for example to the effect that the second workplace partner now has to work full-time). If the remaining workplace partner cannot accept this, he can take action against such a change of termination, if necessary, with an action for protection against dismissal.

Job pairing

Job pairing is similar to job splitting, except that here the partners have to coordinate with each other with regard to the fulfillment of tasks, they share responsibility and make important decisions together. The employment contract is concluded jointly with the partners and can only be terminated jointly.

Top sharing

Top sharing is understood to mean a partnership-based management model, a division of jobs into managerial positions . The term was coined in 1998 by Julia Kuark and Hans Ulrich Locher. In the top-sharing model, executives share responsibility to a certain extent and make important decisions together, such as strategic decisions, personnel decisions or major investments. The sharing of managerial responsibility is particularly demanding in employee appraisals, as subjective criteria also play a role here.

Top sharers at a high decision-making level form what is known as a double top . Conversely, not every dual leadership includes a job sharing, since the concept of dual leadership focuses on shared decision-making authority, regardless of whether it is two people who work full-time, who share a job or who are otherwise engaged.

Legal relationships

General

The legal definition of part-time employment is derived from Section 2 (1) TzBfG. Part-time employees are those whose regular weekly working hours are shorter than the regular weekly working hours of comparable full-time employees in the company. Full-time or part-time employment makes no difference under works constitution law. Each job sharer concludes his own employment contract with the employer. On the other hand, there are no legal relationships between the individual job sharers at the same workplace. All rights and obligations are divided accordingly.

working time

In the case of job-sharing employment relationships, only the duration of the participants' working hours is used. The job sharers determine their working hours independently. If they cannot agree on a work schedule, this must be set by the employer.

Voluntary representation obligation / continued payment of wages

According to Section 13 (1) TzBfG, an employee can only be called upon to represent an employee in advance if there is an urgent operational requirement and the representation is reasonable in individual cases. In all other cases, there must be a separate agreement for the respective case of representation.

In the case of improper job sharing (job splitting), there is no obligation to represent. The situation is more difficult with actual job sharing (job pairing), as the employees organize their working hours themselves. Employment contracts can be structured in such a way that the employees mutually undertake to represent each other. It is generally assumed that the overtime work to be performed by the substitute is to be compensated, but is not treated as overtime work that is subject to a supplement. Employees who share a position therefore have to agree on their respective working hours in good time.

Particularly unpopular with job-sharing models is the obligation to represent one another on vacation or in the event of illness. However, because substitution periods are associated with a high organizational effort for parents, more and more employers have now abandoned the obligation clause. Job-sharing partners are of course entitled to the usual wages if they are prevented from doing so through no fault of their own. The decisive factor, however, is whether the other partners have to represent this lack and how this representation is compensated.

Terminations

In the case of improper job sharing and the company group, the employer must address the termination separately to each employee, and each employee can terminate separately independently of the other members of the group. Members of an ingroup can only cancel together. A notice of termination by the employer must be sent to all employees.

Vacation question

If the colleagues cannot agree on a work schedule, this must be set by the employer. The right to vacation is based on the ratio of work performed to full-time work. The job sharer is entitled to the proportionate remuneration according to his working hours.

Mediation

In some countries there are agencies that specialize in finding job sharing partners.

Tandemploy , a service company founded by Jana Tepe and Anna Kaiser to arrange job sharing, especially for highly qualified employees , has existed in Germany since 2013 . Tandemploy works with software for the search for suitable job-sharing partners, which has also been used within the company since mid-2016 to search for job-sharing partners or to put together teams.

In Switzerland, the Part Time Optimization (PTO) association founded in 2013 by Irenka Krone-Germann and Anne de Chambrier, financed by the Federal Office for Equality between Women and Men (EBG) from private sponsors , maintains the We JobShare platform , which helps with the search after job sharing partners offers.

In Australia, Jobs Shared offers appropriate placement and advice.

literature

• Fred G. Becker (Ed.): Personnel Management - Organization - Entrepreneurship. Josef Eul Verlag, Lohmar-Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89936-226-8 .
• Hans Jürgen Drumm: Human Resource Management. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 1992, ISBN 3-540-56025-4 .
• Wolfgang Hromadka: Personnel management - possibilities and limits of flexible contract design. Stuttgart 1991.
• Hans Jung: Human Resources. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-57663-1 .
• Gerd Kümmel: Business administration of the company. Europa-Lehrmittel Verlag, Haan-Gruiten 2002. ISBN 3-8085-9223-0 .
• Walter A. Oechsler: Personnel and Work. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-24060-9 .
• Klaus Olfert: Human Resources. Kiehl, Herne 2010, ISBN 978-3-470-54384-0 .
• Pullig: Human Resources. Munich / Vienna 1980.
• Heinz Schuler: Organizational Psychology. 2nd Edition. Bern 1993.
• Eberhard Ulrich: work organization. 3. Edition. Zurich 1994.
• Ansfried B. Weinert: Organizational Psychology. Beltz-PVU publishing house, Weinheim 1998, ISBN 3-621-27399-9 .

Web links

• In-depth information ( memento from May 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) from the University of Cologne, Chair of Civil Law, Labor and Social Law
• Job sharing blog divides information, tips and practical examples on job sharing in two
• Job sharing platform Mediation of job offers in tandem and tandem partner search

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Job sharing. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 16, 2008 ; Retrieved July 12, 2008 . 
2. ↑ Job sharing - top sharing. Leadership is not divisible or is it? (No longer available online.) In: Magazine of the University of Zurich No. 3/99 Bulletin of the ETH Zurich No. 275 Nov. 1999, p. 46. November 1999, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 12, 2008 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
3. ↑ Job sharing in management positions as a future model. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 26, 2008 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
4. ↑ Two Berlin founders among the 100 inspiring women of the BBC. In: gruenderszene.de. Retrieved March 24, 2018 . 
5. ^ The Future of Work: Trust instead of Control. In: comatch.com. Retrieved March 24, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Go For Jobsharing: Association PTO (Part Time Optimization). In: go-fo-jobsharing.ch. Retrieved March 24, 2018 . 
7. ↑ We Jobshare. A full-time position with a part-time workload. In: wejobshare.ch. Retrieved March 24, 2018 . 
8. ↑ About us. In: jobsshared.com.au. Retrieved March 24, 2018 .