As a tandem through the crisis: How is job sharing holding up during the coronavirus pandemic?

Job sharing has proven to be a viable working model during the coronavirus pandemic. Employees in leadership positions who share their responsibilities have had positive experiences: Working in tandem has made it easier for them to cope with the many uncertainties and organize their work during the lockdown. This is the finding of an online survey conducted by Martin Krzywdzinski of the Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung (WZB) and Svenja Christen of the Jobsharing Hub. 

Since the lockdown during the coronavirus crisis, working models have been the subject of discussion in the media and in society. What can make gainful employment more crisis-proof? How can family and career be reconciled? How can good leadership be achieved under coronavirus conditions? Job sharing is a working model that has worked well during the crisis. In most cases, managers or skilled workers share a job. The recently published study, for which 55 job sharers were interviewed, complements the extensive scientific study of the working model published in 2019.

The results of the current online survey: 

1. Job sharing helps in difficult decision-making situations: 

   87 percent of respondents reported that job sharing made it much easier or somewhat easier to cope with the new complexity and uncertainty during the coronavirus crisis.

2. Job sharers felt better prepared during the coronavirus crisis: 

   For 72 percent of respondents, it “completely” or “somewhat” increased their abilities in areas such as communication, work organization, and dealing with flexibility requirements, and these now help them to better manage the new work situation in lockdown.

3. The workload during the pandemic was better managed: 

   76 percent of respondents believe that job sharing helps to manage the increased workload and workload during the Corona crisis.

4. Working in tandem improves contact within the team:  Almost half of those surveyed said that job sharing had facilitated communication with colleagues, employees and superiors.

5. Job sharing has proven to be a support for family life:

   Almost all of the managers surveyed have children. Job sharing made it possible to cover the working days and at the same time to have more time to care for children. This view is shared by 64 percent of the respondents.

“Job sharing allows you to quickly adjust the division of labor and vary your own working hours, while continuing to meet work demands as a tandem,” says WZB researcher Martin Krzywdzinski, outlining the advantages of job sharing during the crisis. Svenja Christen makes it clear: ”The added value of job sharing lies not only in the flexibility of working time models and the improvement of the work-life balance. Filling demanding and complex positions with job sharing sharpens the quality of work, especially in times of turbulence and uncertainty such as the COVID-19 crisis. This is a crucial strategic advantage for companies. But she also expresses criticism: “Many companies see job sharing as a women's model, a great solution for how women can finally combine household, childcare and career. And indeed, 96 percent of practicing job sharers are currently female. For me, the figure reflects a lot of courage and ambition on the part of women, but above all, it reflects an existing gender inequality. This needs to be actively counteracted. In other words, not only women, but especially men should be specifically addressed and encouraged to work in job sharing.”

Information about the study:

All of the job sharers surveyed were already working in tandem before the crisis. Their working hours are 20 to 30 hours per week. Among the respondents, 48 are women (96%) and two are men (4%) – 5 did not indicate their gender, so the information refers to the remaining 50 people. 28% work in a specialist role (without team leaders, 24% as heads of department and 8% as heads of division. Three quarters of the respondents are managers with specialist functions, one quarter are experts and specialists. Among managers, the model of a strong overlap of areas of responsibility between the job sharers dominated.

The study: Martin Krzywdzinski, Svenja Christen: “Tandem through the crisis: work during the COVID 19 pandemic” has been published as a discussion paper (SP III 2020-303).

You can download the full paper here.

Prof. Dr. Martin Krzywdzinski is head of the Globalization, Work, and Production research group at the WZB.

Svenja Christen is an occupational psychologist and managing director of the specialized job sharing consultancy “the job sharing hub”.