How-To: Organize Your Everyday Job-Sharing Life

How many hours do you actually work in tandem? Is someone there every day? Are there two e-mail addresses or only one? And business cards? How do we reach agreements? How do we organize our appointments? Many job-sharers ask themselves these or similar questions at the beginning of their tandem work. Therefore, in our how-to article, we cover how to ideally organize tasks, time management, and communication together.

How to organize your everyday job-sharing life

For a successful start, it is important that you take your time and clarify the most important questions together:

• Think about how to divide tasks, responsibilities and, if necessary, clients. Speak openly about your own strengths and preferences.
• Arrange a firm weekly tandem meeting for your deliveries. Incidentally, the total organizational effort of a well-practiced tandem amounts to about 1–2 hours per week.
• Determine what your week looks like. That depends on many factors. How many hours do both tandem partners work? What is your personal situation? Some job-sharers work 2–3 full days, others for the whole week, but only half-days.
• Make arrangements for representation in cases of illness and vacation, and also write an out-of-office message with a direct reference to your tandem partner.
• Discuss which channels (programs and technical tools) you would like to use and which effectively support your daily collaboration.
• A common e-mail address and business card can make sense, but they do not necessarily have to be used.
• Create a “timetable” that is posted or retrievable so that colleagues can directly see which of you is working and when.

Once you’re both on the same page regarding the key points, you should discuss your arrangements with your supervisor. Finally, it makes sense to tell your team how you will work together in the future.