Job-sharing in today’s hi-tech workplace is a flexi-work trend overseas, and it’s beginning to take off in South Africa
Glenda Daniels
If just one boss is more than enough of a headache, imagine two or three. But many workers worldwide, and in South Africa, are hopping aboard the globalisation fast-train and dealing with the changing nature of work by sharing jobs.
Johannesburg-based Vicky Mkize is happier and more fulfilled for having two jobs instead of one. Mkize did a “win- win” deal with Woolworths, where she gives 60% of her time as a senior manager dealing with equity issues, and 40% of her time to her own company, a management diversity company.
“Woolies said, ‘Vicky, please, we need your help’. I didn’t want to give up my clients, so we did a deal that suited both of us. In fact, I also negotiated that I got full benefits, car scheme, medical aid, pension, housing scheme and share scheme, just like any other full- time employee,” said Mkize.
Other South African companies, for example Eskom, encourage employees to have their fingers in various career pies, something unheard of from a big company in the past. However, an Eskom human resources representative said that while such career-path diversification was indeed taking place at the company, she could not disclose details because of “union sensitivities”.
In the United States secretaries have more than one boss and one boss has more than one secretary, says Brenda Blair, of Blair and Burke Consultancy in New York. According to recent research, one out of five secretaries works for more than one person or works part-time or as a casual, she said.
In a recent study of 155 companies by the Conference Board, a business research organisation in New York City, 79% of employers said job-sharing helps them retain valuable employees and 48% said it increases productivity. A Conference Board survey of 131 companies showed 74% offered job-sharing, mostly on an ad-hoc basis, if requested by employees.
Another US employee survey showed that 82% of men aged 20 to 39 stated that a family-friendly work schedule was their most important job criterion.
In a 1999 Today magazine survey of 1E000 adult workers, 92% said they want more flexibility in their work schedule to take care of family needs.
The US Department of Labour last year reported that 28% of full-time wage and salary workers had flexible work schedules that allowed them to vary the time they began or ended work. This is nearly double the 15% with that flexibility in 1991.
Blair cites an anecdote: “I spoke with a manager whose ‘administrative assistant’ position is filled by two sisters. One works Monday and Wednesday and half Friday; the other works Tuesday, Thursday and half Friday. When not working they take care of each other’s children. A perfect arrangement for both employee and employer.”
Besides gaining a work/life balance, for employers the new job-sharing concept is premised on “outcomes-based work” – that not all work requires you to be at the work station for eight hours a day; on high productivity for the employer and the pressure to deal with globalisation; on more than one person being employed so there are more jobs to go around in job scarcity times; that people multi-skill; that balance is created between work and personal life.
It is also part of “flexible work practices” being touted all over the world by businesses, which are employing more and more people on contracts and on a casual basis rather than as full-time life-long employees. This signals the end of work as we know it.
And don’t be fooled if employers are keen on the concept. It’s not just about ensuring their employees don’t get “burn out” from the competitive work environment – it’s also a belt-tightening exercise for companies dealing with the new economy, so they don’t have to pay benefits, such as pensions and medical aids for full-time staff. Instead they pay for services rendered, by the hour.
Says Tracy Harper, a workplace specialist based in Johannesburg: “In Australia an employer told me that he prefers having a few secretaries. They each come in with different competencies and there is high productivity. Employees are actually more committed, more fulfilled, dedicated to productivity and the end product is of a higher quality than if one person did the job five days a week.
“There you have one job, say a secretary shared by three people. They all come in on different days and give their own expertise to the job.”
Besides the US and Australia, the trend is widespread in Ireland and Japan and some parts of Europe, Harper says.
In South Africa, meanwhile, the executive secretary looks set to maintain her all-powerful status in the office. Recent South African research by Kelly Personnel showed that far from the secretary being a downsizing casualty, there has been a huge hike in her earning power, of up to 40%. Executive secretaries have apparently bought into the times, and now information gathering on the internet has become a key function.
So the scenario could go like this: an executive secretary could come into an office, do internet searches and gather information for her boss. On another day a typist secretary could come in and type and sort mail, and then perhaps another on another day could set up a tele- conference, for instance.
Labour analyst Jackie Kelly from Andrew Levy and Associates says that job-sharing is part of flexi-work practices that is now a big trend.
It does two things: it accommodates people who don’t want to work full-time and it is part of an employer’s way to deal with retrenchments. So instead of retrenching someone completely, the person gets a job for one or two days a week. This is widespread in most European countries today.
The implications for organised labour, Kelly says, is that as jobs decrease, unions have fewer members, often workers lose out on benefits such as pensions and medical aid benefits.
However, even if a worker is employed on a part-time contract or as a casual worker, he or she still has the right to belong to a union, according to South African law.
Labour analyst Brian Allen says that in terms of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, where circumstances are beyond the control of an employer and it has to retrench, shared work has now become an alternative. This work is called “short-time” work, and is happening in the metal industries.
So, Allen says, while there is no provision for “job-sharing” in the Act, there is for “short-time” work.