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Understanding and then pitching the benefits of a job-share arrangement
As the co-general counsel of Wesley Mission Queensland are proving, traditional professional services roles can be disrupted. Here, they offer guidance about how to convince your employer that you should be able to undertake such an employment pathway.
Jerome Doraisamy
In a recent episode of The Corporate Counsel Show, Tala Prowd and Helena Kolenbet – the co-GCs of Wesley Mission Queensland – discussed how their job-sharing arrangement came to be, why such an arrangement makes so much sense for them both (personally and professionally), the operational practicalities of job-sharing, and how they successfully navigate the needs of their organisation with key stakeholders.
As Prowd told Lawyers Weekly earlier in the year: “This job-sharing arrangement allows us to make our own professional dreams come true and truly exemplifies the future of flexible work in high-responsibility roles.”
The concept of job-sharing has been thrust into the spotlight most prominently by Bronwen Bock and Lucy Bradlow, who are campaigning to become Australia’s first-ever job-sharing parliamentarians, via their candidacy for a Senate seat in Victoria.
When asked how professional services workers can move to both overcome any fear or trepidation they might have about pushback from their employers if they pursue such working arrangements and then how to pitch for said arrangements, Prowd said the key is that one “shouldn’t be creating extra work for the employer”.
Such roles, she said, are not advertised – at least not yet – and thus, one has “actually got to pitch it to them, you’ve got to do the thinking, you have to have it all organised as to how it will work”.
Knowing and having a strong relationship with the person you would be job-sharing with is also important, Prowd went on.
“I can’t speak to a job-share arrangement where you don’t know the other person, but if you do, we all make these fantastic connections at work, and if you do find that person, just go for it,” Prowd said.
“I very much felt like I had nothing to lose here if we got knocked back, I’d say, ‘No worries, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing’, but I’m a lot more fulfilled as a result [of having pitched to job-share].”
Employers, she said, “don’t want the additional work of trying to work out how to manage your relationship between the both of you”.
“Helena and I look after our relationship between us. If we have, on the odd occasion, [a disagreement] on something small, we deal with that behind closed doors,” she said.
Kolenbet said: “When you do know your job-share partner, you need to understand their strengths.”
“I think that’s very valuable from a strategic perspective to can leverage off each other’s strengths, but also give each other the opportunity to learn from the other as well.”
“For example: Tala is really tenacious … she loves to get things done, whereas I’m the sort of person that likes to think and ruminate over things a little bit, maybe come up with some ideas. I’m not so skilled at being able to have the grit, to be able to just see it through immediately, whereas, you know, Tala is.”
Taken together, the pair are a “dream team”, Kolenbet surmised.
“You’re better together because you’re more valuable to an organisation by being able to draw off those strengths and be able to buffer each other’s areas for improvement,” she said.
Plus, Prowd noted – where required – “We can literally be at two places at once.”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Tala Prowd and Helena Kolenbet, click below:
Jerome Doraisamy
Jerome Doraisamy is the editor of Lawyers Weekly. A former lawyer, he has worked at Momentum Media as a journalist on Lawyers Weekly since February 2018, and has served as editor since March 2022. He is also the host of all five shows under The Lawyers Weekly Podcast Network, and has overseen the brand's audio medium growth from 4,000 downloads per month to over 60,000 downloads per month, making The Lawyers Weekly Show the most popular industry-specific podcast in Australia. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of Minds Count.
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