Partners in Time
Nurses find that job sharing allows them to better their work, family lives

By Alicia Hugg, RN, MA
February 28, 2005

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.

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.

10 tips for job-sharing success

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

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/publications/jbsharguid.html

Alicia Hugg

Alicia Hugg, RN, MA, is a freelance writer.