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1. Find the right job-sharing partner, one with similar needs.
2. Select someone who is compatible with you. As one nurse put it, “Job sharing is like a marriage.”
3. Choose a person with excellent communication skills.
4. Pick someone whose skills complement yours.
5. Approach management with a schedule, a detailed plan, and a clear delineation of duties.
6. Decide how you will share information with your job-sharing partner.
7. Plan on working consecutive days for continuity of services.
8. Don’t give up. If management is hesitant, ask for a three-month trial.
9. Timing is everything. Look for an opportune time to present your plan.
10. Track your projects through a log to demonstrate your successes and value to management.
Alicia Hugg
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Taquino believes that while finding a job-sharing partner with complementary skills and compatibility is important, a clear definition of areas of responsibility is essential. “You must work hard to counter perceptions that you are not serious about your career because you only work ‘part time,’” she says.
Retention is better than cure
As an emergency department nurse, Vickie Sanchez, RN, BSN, has observed the success of job sharing for more than two years. The Desert Storm veteran and former member of the space shuttle recovery team at Edwards Air Force Base in California spent 10 years in the ED before assuming her latest role as nurse manager at Pomerado Hospital in San Diego, Calif. She now supervises nurses who job share.
Her ED nurses traditionally work 12-hour shifts, although she has two nurses with young families who share six-hour shifts. All job-shared positions are benefited for permanent employees. “[Job sharing] makes it a little more difficult for scheduling, but it is worth it to retain staff and improve morale, which are my top priorities,” Sanchez says. “We are all moms and understand the need to be with family, especially with nurses who have young children.”
Scheduling is based on peak times, which in the ED translates to 9:30 PM to 10 AM. In considering job-share candidates, Sanchez looks for strong clinical skills, independent thinkers, nurses who are not easily intimidated, and team players.
She advises managers who are considering job sharing to “Go for it. It will cause a little more headache initially, but if it keeps your staff happy, the retention is so worth it. It benefits the hospital and, most importantly, the patient.”
One of Sanchez’s nurses who splits a 12-hour shift with another nurse is Carol Cooper-Brennan, RN, BSN. A nurse for 24 years, Cooper-Brennan has more than 20 years’ critical care experience. The University of Wisconsin graduate has two young boys “who want Mom home at night.” Cooper-Brennan has successfully shared her job for almost four years. She points to studies that show that 12-hour shifts are long, especially in a critical care setting. “After about 10 hours, people get tired and start making mistakes,” she says.
Cooper-Brennan says she is lucky that in the absence of her regular job-sharing partner, a number of people have volunteered to fill in. She says that both the nursing director and the ED director are supportive of job sharing at Pomerado. Cooper-Brennan adds that she would advise would-be job sharers to “keep an open mind. If you come up with a plan and they want to keep you around, it is worth going for,” she says.
Resources
- Complete Guide To Job Sharing , Patricia Lee
- Creating a Flexible Workplace: How to Select & Manage Alternative Work Options , Barney Olmstead and Suzanne Smith
- WorkOptions.com, www.telecommutingproposal.com
- “Job Sharing: A Retention Strategy for Nurses,” Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership, www.acen-cjonl.org/NL124/NL124DKane.html
- Job sharing and/or part-time work arrangements guidelines, Manitoba Civil Service Commission, www.gov.mb.ca/csc
Alicia Hugg
Alicia Hugg, RN, MA, is a freelance writer.
To comment on this story, send e-mail to editorca@nurseweek.com.
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