By Barbara Walshe

It was on the summit of Mount Cho Oyu in Tibet - the world’s sixth highest mountain - last October that Amy Beeton made her decision. “Looking back at the stunning west ridge of Everest and beautiful neighbouring mountains, I said to myself ‘I’m going to climb Everest, and I’m going to do it next season’,” she remembers.

Such a decision brought some serious issues to the fore. It wasn’t the training or dedication she was struggling with – an accomplished mountain climber, with nine years experience, she’d become accustomed to the rigorous, six-day-a-week training schedule. Instead, it was her job and the financial part that was the concern for her.

Beeton, who works in Media, had already been given two months off by her employer to climb Cho Oyu. And Everest was to be an even bigger commitment. “I knew I was physically and mentally capable of it,” she says now, “It’s just that working full time and having a full time passion outside meant having a normal life was becoming impossible. I was getting to the gym at 7am, going to work and then training afterwards until 11pm at night. It was relentless and exhausting.”

She quit her job and successfully summitted Everest on May 22, the sixth British woman ever to do so. Looking back now, she says she has no regrets and is already starting to consider her next big challenge. But if she could turn back time, there would be one thing she’d do - meet with Azita Qadri earlier.

Amy Beeton’s inspirational story is one of many Qadri has come across since setting up her specialist job-share recruitment agency, Eat Your Cake, last year. She has interviewed many men and women in their 30s to their 50s all looking to balance work with the important things in their lives - but failing miserably. “When work-life balance starts slipping, many people feel they have no other option but to quit,” she says. “Often, there’s another answer.”

"When work-life balance starts slipping, many people feel they have no other option but to quit. Often, there’s another answer." Azita Qadri, Eat Your Cake

Job sharing involves two individuals sharing one role by each working part time. “People today are looking to do more than work. They want time to feed their passion, look after their families, their health or someone else in their family, and they want to do this alongside their career,” she says.

But it isn’t just employees that Qadri is servicing, she’s also solving a growing problem for businesses. “Companies are having a hard time holding onto their staff. People like Amy are choosing to leave work because they don’t feel they have any other option. And with the labour market very tight at the moment, companies are finding it hard to recruit. Job sharing is a way of holding onto their best people and, unlike part-time work, still allowing a job to be done five days a week.”

This isn’t a new concept. In fact job sharing has been on the extensive list of ‘flexible working’ options along with compressed hours (working five days squeezed into four) and part time hours in most big companies for years now. But, although it’s on offer, research shows that, in most cases, it hasn’t really been taken up - until recently.

A report earlier this year by The Lehman Brother’s Centre for Women in Business, part of London Business School, found that in 61 big organisations across Europe, 77 per cent offered job-sharing. But less than 10 per cent of employees were using it.

“There’s a real leap between policy and practice,” admits Lamia Walker, director The Lehman Brother’s Centre for Women in Business. “There were some very big companies involved in the research and while opportunities seem significant, very few are using them.”

So why is this? The research revealed that a certain number of factors need to be present for employees to feel comfortable broaching the topic. First, there must be senior sponsorship for it within the company (a senior executive already doing it). Second, the idea must happen organically in the organisation so that it holds firm in a culture. And, finally, there must be someone to drive it through.

"Job sharing is definitely the way of the future.” Lamia Walker, Lehman Bros Centre for Women in Business"

Qadri also believes there’s a stronger appetite amongst companies for job sharing now compared to five years ago, when she undertook research into the area as part of her MBA. Interviewing 25 women who were ten years post-MBA, and in their late thirties and early forties, she says: “Three quarters of them said they would love to job share and, if I started the business, they would like to see the opportunities I had.”

Businesses were less enthusiastic back then. Interviewing the decision makers in the HR functions of big companies, she found: “There was an issue about women in their thirties leaving because they couldn’t combine work and family. But the companies weren’t doing much about it back then.”

She decided to refresh her research before taking the plunge with Eat Your Cake last year, and it was a total turn-around. “I saw a massive shift in the attitudes of large companies to it. They were far more ready to acknowledge they had a problem retaining professionals in their 30s and 40s, and said they were ready to try new things,” she says. “I got a clear signal that, as soon as I had candidates, they were ready to do something.”

Qadri has had no problem finding candidates, who now range from men and women in their 50s with grown-up children, to those with young families, more like Amy who want to make time for a passion or others who have another business they want to get involved in and don’t want to make the leap yet.

Some have left the workplace and are looking to return to it with job share, others are still employed and ask Qadri to find them a suitable candidate they can then approach their management team with. Companies also come to her direct, asking her to find a job sharing duo to fill a role within their company.

Choosing a job share partner is a detailed process. While Qadri only takes candidates with 10-plus years of professional business experience across any sector, personality plays just as important a role. “If you want all the glory in your role, then you shouldn’t even think about job sharing,” she insists. “And if you’re someone who has problems trusting people or giving up control, it’s not for you.

“You have to love team working, be a competent communicator, be honest and support your partner,” she continues. “My candidates want to work with someone who is not political, someone they can trust, and who has the same attitude to high standards as them.”

There are arguments that job-sharing can only exist in a strong economic environment, when companies are trying to retain good people. There’s also a counter argument that job-sharing is a perfect way to retain people in a downturn, giving them reduced hours rather than redundancy.

Whether it’s for people looking to wind down before retirement or for new parents wanting a slice of family and career life, the case for it grows every day, no doubt helped along by research from DTI stating that productivity of job sharers is 30 per cent higher than one person undertaking the role full time. Whatever the case and argument, Lamia Walker puts it simply: “Job sharing is definitely the way of the future.”

Some hints and tips for job sharing:

1. Job shares are more successful in a proactive environment rather than a reactive environment. “So, it probably won’t work in a crisis management role in PR,” laughs Qadri.
2. Divide the role and the objectives, putting half into one person’s remit and half into the other. “You’re not actually cutting a task in half and working on it. People are working in parallel and updating each other.”
3. Test the water. Although Qadri will do most of the work, matching people together that she feels will job share well, most job share candidates are willing to work alongside their potential partner in the beginning to ensure they suit each other.
4. Establish rules and protocol, such as how emails and phone calls will be answered and who is copied in on what. 
5. Work three days a week each, with an overlap one day a week, Qadri advises. “It boosts productivity and maintains communication and team work.”

If you’re interested in job sharing, find out more by visiting www.eatyourcake.co.uk or contacting Azita Qadri direct on Azita@eatyourcake.co.uk