jackDISPELLING THE MYTHS ABOUT JOB SHARING…
Employing job sharers will cost the production more money..
Job sharers share one job, this means that they share they rate. The sharing pair will have all of their financials in hand when they negotiate their rate.
This will be split in to a day rate – so for those earning £1500 p/week – each freelancers will only invoice for their specific days that month at £300 per/day.
No extra costs are incurred when employing job sharers and the final rate agreed for that job will be agreed by both.
The only time job sharing may come at an extra cost is when those being employed are in senior staff jobs. There is usually a handover day where both peoples will be in to handle the cross-over which means an extra day to pay for. Companies who use this structure realise the benefits of holding on to senior, experiences staff so are will to invest in their set-up rather than lose key members of their organisations. This rarely happens in freelancing situations
Outside of non-scripted television, especially in Drama and film there may be more room for negotiation with a handover day. No two productions are run and some may have more provision in the budget for a handover day depending on the intensity of the project.
Job sharing is just work working Mum’s
Job sharing is for absolutely anyonewho needs it, regardless of their personal circumstances. Currently it is a model that works well for parents who can not commit to full time work but the set-up can be applied to any pairing of freelancers. Those who have passion projects or elderly parents, people who at that time in their lives just want to work a little less. It’s is also an excellent way to assist people with disabilities find the right workload in the industry. It simply is a way for freelancers to create part-time work in an industry does not have part-time positions.
So much more work is involved hiring two freelancers instead of one..
Again, not true. The only ‘extra’ work involved is the raising of contacts and setting up each freelancers on the system. Two people are added to payroll rather than one and once they are set-up, they’re ready to go.
At no point should any member of staff have to repeat themselves or handover extra information. This is entirely the responsibility of the job sharers. The handover is the most vital part of the job.
No stone is left unturned during that communication. Each person is always on hand to ask questions and answer emails. Just because they aren’t in the office that day do not mean that they are not available to speak to their job sharer. They want this to work more than anyone so there will be no doubling up of tasks where a freelancing pair are concerned!
Job sharers will slow the work down
We’ve hear this said before and this was concerned with the edit. The SP was convinced that employing two people for the job would slow down the work flow.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. In our experience, job sharers are fast, efficient and fresh when it comes to attacking their part of the week. From personal experience we know that extra work in done to make sure that the handover happens in a ‘neat’ place. This may mean working longer to finish a part or writing up extensive notes which usually means that the edit especially is more organized, structures and efficient.
Job sharing won’t work on new formats – only long running established series
Job sharing works BETTER for new formats in our opinion. Think about it. You are employing two highly talents freelancers who both give their input and creativity to a project. No matter what the job role. Job sharers share their experience and work together to drive a new format. There is a swap over mid week so you get a fresh head on the production who is raring to go.
How can this not be the better option? Employing one person who is expected to do very long hours and make every decision alone will lead to burn out very quickly. Job sharers pair themselves by their experience so you can employ a pair who sometimes has 30 years of experience between them.
We’ll have to do everything twice
NEVER! The handovers are seamless and are the most important aspect of job sharing. IT is up to the pair to pass over the information to one another, there doesn’t need to be any doubling up. In times where meetings are attending or important information is delivered – we film the conversations so it’s passed over verbatim!
How will the handover work?
Usually both freelancers are copied in to all email – in some cases, job sharers use the same email but this isn’t essential – it works perfectly well with two separate ones – this is down to the production to decide how they would like to work. On the handover day, extensive notes are put together and a very long phone call ensues! There will more than likely have been plenty of conversations during the week too – everything is SHARED.
Staff won’t like having to report to two people
This is production dependent. It’s a personal preference and not something that is a rule! IF the senior employees on the production embrace the job share, then everyone else will too!
What if we like one person who applies but not the other?
That is something to be discussed at the point of interview. Most freelancers do have more than one person to share with so it is possible to change the combination but this is difficult due to non-work commitments and all of the pieces of the jigsaw that need to come together before freelancers can job share.
There will have been many, many times where employers haven’t taken on the right person, where working relationships don’t playout as you would have hoped. Job shares want to make this work – they will not pair themselves with anyone who they don’t 100% trust to do the job with them so you must trust the pairing freelancers put themselves sin – give it a go – you may be surprised!!