Share Your Job Share - Clare & Annabelle, from Job Sharer to Coach

To demonstrate the breadth, potential, and diversity of successful job share teams, we are working to compile job share stories from around the globe.

About the job share

Role: Senior Finance Manager

Industry: Finance & Insurance

Company: Lloyds Banking Group

Country: United Kingdom

Description: Senior Finance Manager and Inclusion and Diversity leads for Retail Finance.

Years of Job Share: We’ve been in a job share for 5 ½ years and counting. We have set up The Jobshare Coach with the mission to make jobsharing more commonplace!

What did you like most about job sharing?

Clare: Combined strengths, ability to focus on career progression and support for each other.

Annabelle: The ability to deliver in a full time role while working part time.

What do you wish people and companies knew about job sharing:

Clare: The huge advantages to everyone, not just the jobsharers themselves.

Annabelle: The potential benefits are huge to organisations and individuals wanting to work part time - don’t think about perceived barriers - look at the benefits!

What were the main reason(s) you wanted to job share?

Clare: Time to volunteer and give back, work-life integration, and time to take care of loved ones.

Annabelle: Two reasons - frustrations with what I was able to achieve while in a part time role (and my output being judged against colleagues working full time) and finding it hard to switch off on my non working days which was affecting my work life balance. Jobsharing has solved both of these!

How did you find your job share partner? We met while both on secondment to the same team and when the opportunity for a permanent role came up, we decided to apply as a job share - we got on well, had similar values and both wanted to reduce our hours. We had an initial trial period during which we had great stakeholder and colleague feedback, and then the arrangement was made permanent.

How did Benefits work? The company provided full benefits to both of us.

At what level did you start your job share? We were both at manager level and subsequently applied for and were successful in gaining promotion to Senior Manager level within Lloyds as job share partners. We manage a team of 14 and have since recruited a new job share into our team which is proving to be a success. We also champion LBGs culture and diversity initiatives and offer coaching to other job shares.

How did you share your schedule and responsibilities? 1 person has more hours (45.5 hours per week in total). We operate under a principle of shared responsibility for all tasks as we feel this is the most appropriate for our role. Our overlap day is Tuesday which we use for agreeing priorities. As a general rule we do not attend the same meetings to improve efficiency, but will do so where we deem necessary. One of our key principles is backing up any decisions made by the other. We have an informal handover on Thursday mornings as well - strong communication is essential for delivering a seamless experience for our team and stakeholders.

If you or someone you know is in a job share, please encourage them to share their job share story here: Share Your Job Share