Job-sharing: the art of being number one together

For eight years now, Sandra Hartmann and Jeannette Jutzi have been sharing a full-time position as assistants. Since April 2017, they have worked in this role for Achim Baumstark, Head of IT & FM (CTO) and member of Helvetia’s Group Executive Management. Their week goes as follows: Jeannette Jutzi works the first half of the week. At lunchtime on Wednesday, the colleagues spend an hour together to ensure a seamless handover, before Sandra Hartmann takes over for the rest of the week. Rather than handing back over in person, she writes a briefing on Friday evenings so that Jeannette Jutzi knows exactly what to do when she arrives on Monday morning. The aim of both job-sharing partners is to ensure as smooth a transition as possible so that the boss hardly even notices which of the two is working on any given day.

A win-win situation

Both women decided upon job-sharing in order to have more time for their families and their own interests. For them, this modern way of working offers only advantages. «When job-sharing, it is essential that you work as a team and that the chemistry is just right. That’s definitely the case for us», says Jeannette Jutzi, adding: «For me, job-sharing is the art of being number one together.» For Sandra Hartmann, one thing is clear: «The line manager must be open to this model. But he ultimately benefits from double the expertise and double the skills. It’s also great when a fresh mind can start working in the middle of the week.» «And if one of us is on holiday, it’s not a problem since the other one is there to do the work», adds Jeannette Jutzi.

Not only 50:50 splits are possible

At Helvetia, not only 50:50 divisions of roles are possible, but also 60:40 or even 60:60. This enables us to better cater to the needs of our employees. For this reason, Helvetia aims to offer more job-share positions in future. For Sandra Hartmann and Jeannette Jutzi, this is a step in the right direction, since both of them would definitely choose job-sharing again if they had to.