生活在这个时代的上班一族，承受着太多来自方方面面的压力。他们终日忙忙碌碌，以致很少时间陪在家人身边，很少时间健身。他们也想出游，给身心放个假，但又可能因为痛惜被扣的工资而打消这种念头。年复一年，物质生活也许是好了，精神生活却可能很难堪。就像被囚禁在笼里的鸟儿，他们渴望自由翱翔，呼吸最清新的空气。有什么办法可以做些改变？在西方职场流行起来的“两人一职”也许算是个办法，但却要承担工资减少的后果。
要放松，还是要工资，你做主。
——Lavender
文字难度：★★★
Beth Murtha has no 1)qualms about volunteering at her children’s schools Monday through Wednesday. She knows that her job-sharing partner, Barbara Keesler, is at the office, handling administrative work for the Jell-O brand group at 2)Kraft Foods in Rye Brook.
She also knows that when she goes to work on Thursday, a note tracking the week’s activities will be in place, as will a work-in-progress folder, so she can pick up where Ms. Keesler left off.
Ms. Murtha, who lives in Brewster, and Ms. Keesler, who lives in Cortlandt Manor, enjoy a flexible work option called job sharing that is gaining acceptance in 3)Westchester as companies strive to retain 4)seasoned employees and recruit new ones.
“Job sharing is a wonderful addition to a company’s flexible schedule,” said Marjorie Schelling, category business director for Jell-O brands at Kraft, and Ms. Murtha’s and Ms. Keesler’s supervisor. Ms. Schelling also supervises another job-share on her 17-member team. She describes job sharing as “a seamless process.”
“There are no 5)hiccups,” she said. “I constantly mix them up and I often call them by each other’s names, but the job always gets done. It doesn’t matter which of them is on.”
贝思·默撒每周一至周三都在她孩子的学校里当义工，对此她毫无顾虑。她知道与她共任一职的工作搭档芭芭拉·凯斯拉就在办公室里，处理着纽约州拉伊·布鲁克市卡夫食品有限公司吉露品牌组的一些行政工作。
她还知道她周四去上班时，就会看到一张记录当周工作的便条，还会看到一个工作进度文件夹，这让她得以接着凯斯拉女士的工作做下去。
住在美国纽约州布鲁斯特市的默撒女士和住在纽约科特兰县庄园的凯斯拉女士正享受着一种被称为“工作共担”的灵活就职选择。在各企业努力挽留经验丰富的员工并招募新员工的背景下，工作共担这种工作方式在纽约州的威彻斯特郡逐渐获得认可。
“工作共担对于一家公司灵活安排工作来说，是一个很棒的选择，”卡夫食品有限公司吉露品牌品种交易董事马乔里·谢林说道。身为默撒女士和凯斯拉女士的主管，谢林女士在她那个17人的团队里还监管着另一项工作共担。她把工作共担描述为“一个无漏洞的过程”。
“并没有任何工作上的中断。”她说，“我经常把他们搞混，把名字叫反，但是他们总会把工作做好。谁在上班并不重要。”
Shari Rosen Ascher and her job-sharing business partner Maggie Sisco are both examples and leaders in job sharing.
Their company, ShareGoals, established in April, 2001, advises would-be job sharers and companies interested in learning to manage job-share teams. Their self-published book Share the Goals: How to Successfully Job Share was published in 2001.
“Job sharing is a win-win for job-share partners,” Ms. Rosen Ascher said. Ms. Sisco added, “As well as for corporations.”
They often 6)complete each other’s sentences. In fact, over time many of their clients, not knowing which of the 7)duo they were talking to, combined their names—Shari and Maggie—into Shaggy. Their answering machine announces that “Team Shaggy” will get back to the caller.
They began job sharing in 1995, after working together as account executives at a radio sales company in 8)Manhattan. Ms. Sisco left when her first child was born, and Ms. Rosen Ascher had a baby nine months later. Because their hours were demanding, they discussed sharing their job. When they presented the idea to their company, they were turned down.
They took the idea to Interep Radio, a competing company, and were hired. Together they worked their way up from account executive to vice president of sales, all the while splitting their workweek, each working three days a week, two days alone and one 9)overlapping.
沙丽·罗森·亚斯彻和她的工作共担搭档玛吉·西斯科在工作共担方面都是榜样和引领者。
她们的公司“分享目标”创立于2001年4月，专给有意与他人共任一职的人以及有兴趣学习如何管理工作共担团体的公司提供建议。她们自己出版的书《分享目标：如何成功地共担工作》于2001年出版发行。
“工作共担对于共任一职的双方来说是双赢的。”罗森·亚斯彻女士说。西斯科女士补充道：“对于企业也一样。”
她们经常会把对方意犹未尽的句子说完。她们的很多客户弄不清自己在和二人组中的哪一个交谈，事实上，过了一段时间，客户把她俩的名字——沙丽和玛吉——合成了“沙吉”。她们的应答机声称，“沙吉团队”将回复电话。
她们是从1995年开始共担工作的。此前，两人在美国纽约市曼哈顿区一家收音机销售公司一起做财务管理。西斯科女士生下第一胎后离职，罗森·亚斯彻女士九个月后也生了孩子。因为工作强度很大，她们讨论了共任一职的可能性。当她们向公司提出申请时，却被拒绝了。
她们向公司的竞争对手——Interep 收音机公司提出了她们的想法，这一次她们得到了聘用。她们一起从财务经理晋升到销售部副总裁，始终把工作时间分成两部分，每人每周工作三天，其中各自独立工作两天，一起工作一天。
“We couldn’t have risen to vice president without the job share,” Ms. Rosen Ascher said. “Because of the demands, it was much easier to become Vice Present as a team.”
The “Shaggy” team points out that many part-time employees are disappointed because they have a reduced income and fewer benefits, yet their workloads remain the same. With job sharing, there is always someone on the job, no 10)down time for vacations, and no time lost while a mother is giving out pizza at the class picnic.
While benefit arrangements depend on the company, it is not unusual for job sharers to have full or partial benefits.
“We find 70 percent of companies flexing their employment arrangements to attract and retain good employees,” Ms. Mockler, a job sharer, said. “Whether the economy is on an upslide and good employees are hard to 11)come by, or the economy is in recession, the flexible job market is an 12)untapped resource.”
She points out that job sharing was introduced in the 1970’s, largely as an option for secretarial and white-collar jobs that were easy to divide. Now, she said, more managers are enjoying the benefits of job sharing.
Job seekers looking for this arrangement have two options. They can find a partner to present to corporations or, more often, apply for half of a job share already in place.
Many Westchester companies permit job sharing, including the 13)PepsiCo, which has offered job-sharing as an option for more than 70 years.
There are no 14)hard and fast rules for splitting the workload in a job share. Some people split the day, others split the workweek. Some have an overlapping day and others alternate weeks.
“如果不是共任一职，我们不可能升到副总裁这个位置。”罗森·亚斯彻女士说道，“因为这个职位要求很高，用团体的力量更容易坐上副总裁这个位置。”
“沙吉”团队指出，很多兼职员工都因为他们的收入和福利金不如别人但工作量一样而感到失望。共担工作则使岗位上永远有人在，工作也没有因为员工度假而中断。就算身为人母的工作者在孩子的班级野餐中分发比萨饼，她也没有因此耽误工作。
虽然福利的分配由公司决定，但共担工作的人领到全额或者部分福利金并不是一件很稀奇的事。
“我们发现70%的公司正通过安排弹性的工作来吸引和留住好员工。”与他人共享一职的莫克勒女士说道，“无论经济是否在上升期，好员工是否难求，或者经济是否不景气，弹性工作的市场是一种有待开发的资源。”
她指出，工作共担在20世纪70年代就出现了，主要面向工作容易分配的秘书工作和白领工作。她说，现在有更多的管理者享受着工作共担的好处。
寻找工作共担的求职者有两种选择。他们可以自己找一个搭档，两人一起去公司应聘；然而更普遍的是，他们可以应聘已经有一个人在职的共担工作。
威彻斯特郡的很多公司都允许工作共担，包括70多年前已开始准许共担工作的百事可乐公司。
至于如何拆分工作时间，这并没有严格的规定。有些人拆分工作日，有些人拆分工作周。有些人选择某一天和搭档一起上班，有些人则选择一周一周轮换着上班。
“The mechanics don’t matter,” Ms. Rosen Ascher said. “It doesn’t matter if you spoke to Maggie on Thursday or me on Monday, as long as you know that you’re only going to have one conversation.”
Ms. Schelling said communications and commitment are essential for successful job sharing on her Jell-O team.
“Communications are 15)paramount in the business world and there’s a lot to be learned from teams like Beth and Barbara,” she said. “This is not a position to them, it’s a career to both of them. They spend time thinking ahead, anticipating each other’s needs. They make sure that things are 16)in great shape for the next person.”
To get this kind of 17)synergy, the ShareGoals team recommends that job sharers find a partner who is philosophically on the same track in terms of business and career. When job-sharing arrangements don’t work out, it is often because the situation was constructed around scheduling or the job share was put together in haste because someone was going to leave.
A job-share partner doesn’t have to be exactly like the other partner, but should be complementary. ShareGoals’s biggest challenge is dealing with nonbelievers, but both partners have a “we’ll show you” attitude.
“After all, they’re getting two brains, four eyes,” Ms. Sisco pointed out. Ms. Rosen Ascher chimed in, “And 20 fingers. All for the price of one.”
“机制怎样，无关紧要，”罗森·亚斯彻女士说道，“你周四和玛吉通电话或者周一和我通电话都没关系，只要你知道，你只和其中的一个人在交谈就可以了。”
谢林女士认为，对于她那个吉露团队来说，沟通与投入，是共担工作成功的关键。
“沟通在商界极为重要。人们可以从贝思和芭芭拉这样的团队身上学到很多东西。”她说，“这对于她们两人来说不是一个职位，而是一份事业。她们会花时间预想，预料彼此工作上的需要。她们确保所有的事情对于下一个来工作的人来说都处于良好状态。”
要达到这种良好的协同作用，“分享目标”的创立者“沙吉团队”建议那些参与工作共担的人找一个在商场和事业上持相同观点的搭档。如果工作共担这种安排无效，往往是因为只顾到时间的配合而忽视了其他，或者是因为某个雇员准备离职，公司匆忙把别的雇员凑在一块工作而导致的。
参与工作共担的双方不需要太相像，但需要存在互补性。“分享目标”公司最大的挑战就是应对那些不相信工作共担这种安排有效的人。但沙丽和玛吉都抱着一种“我们会让你相信”的态度。
“毕竟，共担工作的人有两个大脑，四只眼睛，”西斯科女士指出。罗森·亚斯彻女士补充道，“还有20根手指呢——却只拿一人的薪水，多划算。”
