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Job sharing is a way of life for nurses like Jill Arzouman, RN, who want an equitable balance between career and family.

Jill Arzouman, RN, MS, APRN, CNS, says she has a job that not only leaves her energized at the end of the day, but that also gives her time to shuttle her children to after-school activities and watch them receive school awards. She also can schedule family vacations without worrying about her job being affected.

Job sharing is a way of life for nurses like Arzouman who want an equitable balance between career and family. Job sharing also has worked for nurses who are parents with young children and seasoned nurses who don’t feel the need to work full time now that the children have flown the nest.

When Arzouman applied for a full-time position as a surgical clinical nurse specialist at the University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., a teaching hospital, she discovered that she and one other candidate were being considered for the position. They connected and found that neither wanted full-time work; both had young children and wanted to spend more time with them. So the two nurses discussed job sharing.

That was more than five years ago. Today, Arzouman and her job-share partner, Jane Lacovara, RN, MSN, CNS, still share the position, following surgical oncology patients from clinic to hospital to discharge at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. The nurses, who focus on patient and staff education, say they have the full support of their supervisors, physicians, director of nursing, and vice president of nursing.

Arzouman and Lacovara have completed several joint projects, including research on high-risk breast cancer patients and publication of a nursing textbook chapter, journal articles, and abstracts. The two nurses also have educated nursing staff on caring for postoperative kidney transplant patients immediately after surgery to eliminate overnight intensive care unit stays.

Arzouman works about 20 hours per week, which leaves ample time for her to be a full-time mom to her three young sons. Lacovara sees patients Mondays and Tuesdays and leaves Arzouman a patient list for Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. The nurses’ biggest challenge is reminding university staff that while there are two nurses, there is just one full-time equivalent position.

Lacovara’s years of critical and cardiac care experience complement Arzouman’s strong leadership, educational, and writing skills. Lacovara, who is also the mother of three sons, says she is proud that she “never quit working as a nurse.”

She believes that job sharing prevents burnout. “We absolutely love it,” Lacovara says. “It has allowed me to stay in nursing and is very personally fulfilling.” She and Arzouman have become good friends and stress the importance of open communication with administrative staff and each other. They accomplish this through daily activity logs and weekly reports. Management also requires a six-month review of goals and objectives, and determines whether the goals and objectives were met.

Arzouman says she enjoys the autonomy and her manager’s “hands-off” attitude, which encourages creativity and productivity.

Family-friendly system

As director of inpatient maternal child services at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco, Nancy Taquino, RN, MSN, sees job sharing as a long-term retention strategy. With nearly 30 years of maternal child nursing experience, including adult and neonatal intensive care, she also views job sharing as a way to keep experienced talent within the hospital. For example, a nurse may want to job share while his or her children are growing up. Once they are grown, the nurse may opt for full-time employment. He or she is then ready for a management position and the hospital can recruit internally, instead of spending time and money on outside recruitment.

“Now that my children are grown, I can work full time,” Taquino says.

Taquino says that because few references are available on job sharing, few nurses are aware of it as an alternative to a part-time position or full-time work. “The first time I heard about it was when my children were small and two teachers were job sharing. I thought, ‘If teachers can make this work, why not nurses?’” Taquino job shared for 12 years with another nurse manager. When they began their new position, Taquino had three children younger than 6 while her job-sharing partner had a newborn.

Propelled by the need to balance their lives, the two nurses submitted a job-share proposal to administration and were turned down. However, when they resubmitted it three months later, timing and luck smiled on them; because the hospital had lost several managers during the interim, administration accepted their second proposal.