The Key Learning Points:

1.How the ABI's #MakingFlexibleWork campaign is designed to address the gender seniority gap and increase flexible working 

2.The main myths and misconceptions about job sharing

3.How job sharing is a key element of flexible working and how it can benefit employers and employees 

On this week's remote Risky Mix podcast, we’re lucky to be joined by not one, but two wonderful ladies from the Association of British Insurers – Katy Murray and Chloe Tait – who job share in their current role as diversity and inclusion campaign leads at the ABI. Today we’ll be chatting about their #MakingFlexibleWork campaign and we’ll be busting some of the main myths about job sharing as well as highlighting the benefits of job sharing for employers and employees.

We speak about the ABI’s #MakingFlexibleWork campaign which aims to increase flexible working in the Insurance and Long Term Savings sector. The Charter contains three key commitments:

1.      Advertising the majority of roles as open to job sharing, part-time or flexible working

2.      Putting processes in place to support anyone who wants to work flexibly, part-time or in a job share

3.      Publishing flexible work policies online so that they are transparent

If you’d like to know more, or if you’d like to find out which firms are supporting job sharing and flexible working, please visit the website.

While job sharing appears to be less common in the financial services industry it’s actually quite prevalent in other sectors: “It’s really great to think about how it can be effective at a range of different levels, including very senior ones.” And we talk about why flexible working and job sharing are so important to combat the gender seniority gap we face – at executive level 24% in insurance and long-term savings are women and sadly that hasn’t changed over the last few years.  

The discussion then moves onto the top myths around job sharing. Cost is often a big barrier for firms who think “you’re employing two people to do one job”, however Katy explains the productivity benefits - The Job Share Project Report states that companies can see an increase of 30% in productivity through recruiting a job share team. Other myths include that job sharing is just for mums or women. The ladies bust these myths during the episode.

Katy and Chloe explain that there are typically two types of job share: ‘pure job shares’ are where both employees work across all aspects of the role and ‘hybrid job shares’ are where employees split elements of the role. They also share wider guidance on how to make job sharing work and there’s more information in this free ‘Job Share Toolkit’. 

We ask for our guest’s key pieces of advice for HR teams or senior management looking to improve their flexible working policy. The ladies suggest that companies should adjust their policies to enable job sharing. Chloe adds that it’s about culture change – awareness of job sharing, using case studies to demonstrate success and internal communications to bust myths. It’s also about systems change and making it easier to put a job share partnership in place.