11th National Library Technicians Conference

Job-sharing in the Adelaide District and Magistrates Courts Library: a personal perspective from two job-sharers

Riina Sciacca and Michelle Green Sir Samuel Way Library

Abstract
The Sir Samuel Way Library, District and Magistrates Courts, South Australia has two library technicians in a job-sharing arrangement. The scheme was initiated on a 6-month trial basis but is now a permanent arrangement. This paper discusses important practical issues related to job-sharing from the perspective of the two library technicians and their manager. Some practical job-share issues are raised in the paper including advantages and disadvantages to the workplace. Potential pitfalls of job-sharing are also briefly discussed. This paper describes the work organisational structure of the Sir Samuel Way Library, how it services the clients and the duties carried out by the two library technicians.

Introduction
The Sir Samuel Way Library, District and Magistrates Courts of South Australia, provides a comprehensive library and information service to judicial officers of the District and Magistrates Courts and staff of the Courts Administration Authority. A limited service is also provided to the legal profession, government agencies, libraries and the wider community.

The library holds over 58 000 items, half of which are housed in the Sir Samuel Way Building. The remainder is housed in satellite collections in metropolitan, suburban and country courts, judicial chambers and Authority offices.

The library has a staffing level of five positions, the librarian, deputy librarian and library technician, and two part-time clerical officers. The librarian, deputy librarian are full-time with the authors sharing the technician position. One of the clerical officers works Monday to Wednesday while the other works Monday to Friday (full-time on Monday, and half-time Tuesday, Thursday and Friday).

The authors work as library technicians and job-share with the following schedule: Michelle Green works the Monday to Tuesday shift while I take the Wednesday to Friday shift.

Background
Prior to leaving for 12 months maternity leave Michelle was working full-time, five days a week. She knew upon her return that she did not want to work full-time, but was prepared to look at a maximum of 15 hours per week. Several weeks before Michelle was due back at work she contacted the librarian, and discussed in general terms what she would and wouldn't like to do, then arranged an appointment time, giving the librarian time to liaise with Human Resources regarding what options were available.

Michelle was pleasantly surprised to find the Courts Administration Authority agreed to her working 15 hours per week (.4), and selected days Monday and Tuesday. The other portion of 22.5 hours (.6) was initially advertised on a six-month contract. After evaluation, if successful, it would then be advertised on an ongoing basis. This arrangement was followed through, has now been working successfully for over a year and is the subject of this paper.

It was decided from the beginning that there would be no cross over of time because there was a need to have a library technician working every day and that there was limited workspace. Michelle Green works Mondays and Tuesdays, and I work Wednesday to Friday. I have a cross over with Michelle at least once a month on a Tuesday when the library staff meeting is held. We use time after that constructively to look at any concerns that may have arisen over time and face-to-face communication and visually looking at working components streamlines our working procedures. We also both have mobile phones, which we have used to track each other down.

Despite having set working days flexibility is still a key issue. For instance, I try to make myself available for the Tuesday morning meetings. This is a time best suited to me given that Monday and Tuesdays are the only days that all other staff members are present. This also gives me a chance to meet with Michelle. This arrangement was negotiated with the librarian when I commenced working in the job-share. Whilst it is easier not to swap days, this can be negotiated on an as needs basis and has been done on one occasion to date.

Challenges
One of our biggest challenges is to fit five days work into our respective 2/3 days. Even after a year of job sharing successfully, we still feel the need to cram as much as we can, indeed more than physically possible sometimes, into the five days. An easy way to remember that we are part of a full picture is to visualise ourselves as part of a jigsaw, where the two pieces fit snugly together making one equivalent full-time employee. This feeling of not being able to do as much as we should is compounded when we are required to attend meetings and training courses, seminars and relieve extra desk shifts in the absence of another professional staff member.

The challenge for management is also to define the job description and duties. It is important to have the job duties and workflow well defined. This is important in order that the rest of the library staff understand what the two job-sharers are doing. It also helps the two job-sharers to pick up where the other finished. This has worked well so far in the Sir Samuel Way Library although sometimes requires communication outside of individual working days such as telephone calls at home and e-mail. E-mail is useful because it is possible to send messages to each other at work and even home (they become effectively electronic 'post-its').

One of the most difficult challenges faced by the manager is to recruit two people who will work together effectively in a job sharing arrangement. Many of the requirements of making job-sharing work rely on the employees' character and how well they work together - apart. Later we discuss the factors that ensure job-sharing works.

There is some overhead in managing two staff in the one position. Apart from the obvious administrative overhead and double pay handling, there is management overhead including training, career advancement, performance management and team building. There may also be difficulties in communicating important information during staff meetings.

Advantages to management
There are a number of advantages to management in the work share arrangement. These include:

Corporate knowledge. The advantage of having two employees in the same position is that corporate memory is maintained and there is some continuance of skills and corporate knowledge during periods of leave or if one becomes sick.

Experience and skills crossover. The combination of experience totalling 34 years and the diverse skills of two work sharers is amplified in the cross over of skills. We have a mixture of experiences. For instance Michelle has experience working at the Hillcrest Hospital library and the State Library of South Australia in a wide range of library duties. I bring experience working at TAFE, CSIRO, University, and other specialist libraries also in a wide range of duties. This brings a combination of experience that probably could not be achieved by recruiting a single technician. Managers in the organisation view this variety of experience as an aid in problem solving.

Productivity and motivation. Although short work periods (2-3 days) can create the feeling of 'the work is never done', there does seem to be the impression that we are more motivated as we don't get the 'Monday' or 'Friday' blues and this helps workplace productivity. For small work groups, as is the case in our work situation, having two people share the one position can also give extra variety to the group, make the group "appear" bigger and help the group dynamics.

Advantages to the job-sharers
There are numerous advantages to employees who are happy to work part-time. These are summarised below:

Flexibility in recreational or sick leave. If either one of us is on leave the other can carry the load for at least two or three days of a five day week. There is, therefore, always a continuum of work, although it may get more stressful for the person left behind.

Corporate knowledge. If either of us should resign the other can continue the workflow either by taking over full-time, or as back up cover until a new person is appointed to the position. Something akin to this happened when the position became job-share. Michelle with her prior knowledge and experience was able to "cover" for me whilst I was learning the ropes of the new job.

It is important to know that we can contact each other at any time, verbally or via e-mail, with any questions, issues or problems that are concerning us. This contrasts with a new full-time employee who must learn from the manager or other peers, and "make his or her own way".

Balance between work and outside life. Job sharing provides us with the opportunity to maintain our careers while still having the majority of our week for personal pursuits. For Michele this includes looking after her son and a reduced requirement for childcare. This has financial as well as social benefits for her family. Likewise, I find the job-share arrangement gives me more time to spend time with friends and outside interests.

Maintaining employability and career prospects. Even though we are in a job-share arrangement we still have a permanent position and are still working in our chosen careers. In the past the only alternative may have been to leave work for a period of time to cater to personal needs such as starting a family. Taking time off work may make it harder to go back into ones chosen career. Job sharing also has the potential to allow individuals to undertake further studies, bring home reading material related to work and update their library skills without adversely affecting the workplace.

What makes job sharing work?
There are a number of key points that make job sharing in a specialist library work. These are:

Communication (Management). Management must understand that although they have one position, they need to communicate with two different staff and personalities.

Communication (Job-sharers). It is important for job-sharers to find some time to meet. We try to meet at the same time as the group meetings. Communication is the key to our success and we communicate regularly via telephone and e-mail. Both of us are very lucky to have access to e-mail at home and use our home e-mail for non-urgent communication. We communicate at least once a week via the telephone; several times per week via e-mail and face to face at least once a month after our staff meetings and on other occasions as need arises.

Commitment. Effective job-sharing requires commitment from management, the employees concerned and the rest of the team.

Communication with clients. There is also the need for understanding from the client who may be dealing with one employee at the start of a request and another later on.

Effective management. Staff involved in job sharing need to be given the same opportunities for staff development and training. This creates a challenge for management as this can lead to extra overhead and reduced staff utility in terms of available time.

Team work. It is important that the job-sharers need to be willing to relinquish ownership and control of the job. They should not take on supervisory roles for each other's work or compete to be "better" than each other. This can generate distrust.

Work flow. It is important to keep the job-share duties as similar as possible for each job-sharer. Although Michelle looks after the Magistrates Court Library and I look after the Environment, Resources and Development Court (ERD) Library, we both have knowledge and skills to work in the other libraries if necessary. These libraries are tended to at least once a week where we add the latest journal titles and new books, ensure loose-leaf filing is kept up to date, change the display once a fortnight and ensure the library is kept neat and tidy

It is important to adhere to established work procedures and guidelines otherwise it is difficult to maintain a steady workflow. Because we do not change these principles to suit our individual requirements, this helps to give our colleagues a clear perception of our roles.

Compatibility of job-sharers. Personalities can be important when looking at a job-share situation, but we feel that our personalities fit in well together. Both of us tend to be perfectionists, look to pleasing others as well as having a strong sense of duty to our other half. We both tend to stress out on occasion, but liaising with each other tends to lead to a strong support network and we can rationalise any difficulties we perceive and then calmly work through them. Along with excellent communication skills it is also essential that the two personalities fit together and complement each other, maintaining a common ground to ensure workflow.

Conclusion
Working part-time can be a personally fulfilling way to work. It gives more time to allow us to spend with family, to pursue our hobbies, undertake social activities or carry out further study/training. For those with families, however, one may feel they are working a seven-day week. However, the positive side of this situation is that there is variety in one's week.

In this paper we have presented the views of the job-sharers, their supervisors and management. Overall, this job-share scheme has worked well. This does not mean however that all situations will be suited to job-sharing. It depends to a large extent on the commitment of management, the management style, the type of work and personalities of the job-sharers.

The advantages of job-sharing were discussed with the key benefits being diversity of skills in the workforce, greater flexibility in work arrangements and enhanced team dynamics. We believe these advantages offset the management overheads in administration of the two positions and the potential workflow problems.

Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Michael Moore, District Court Registrar for supporting this paper and my attendance at the Conference. We would like to acknowledge Rosemary Hocking, librarian, The Sir Samuel Way Library, District and Magistrates Courts for her support for the paper, her input into the paper of the manager's perspective of job sharing and her support for the job sharing position. I would like to thank my husband for assistance in Power Point presentation.

Biographies
Riina Sciacca
Riina Sciacca obtained her Library Technician's Certificate from Seven Hills TAFE College in 1983. She has worked for many years in TAFE Colleges in Brisbane, the University of Newcastle libraries, CSIRO Division of Information Technology in Melbourne, Preston TAFE library, Regency TAFE in South Australia, Dept. Mines and Energy, Panorama TAFE, and Adelaide TAFE. Riina is a library technician at the Sir Samuel Way Library in Adelaide, serving the District and Magistrates' Courts of South Australia. Riina was vice-president of the South Australia ALIA Library Technician's section in 1997.

Michelle Green
Michelle Green completed her Library Technician - Associate Diploma at Adelaide TAFE in 1990. She commenced work as a library technician at Hillcrest Hospital Library (psychiatric) then worked at the State Library of SA, before moving back into the special library environment. Michelle is a library technician at the Sir Samuel Way Library in Adelaide, serving the District and Magistrates' Courts of South Australia.