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Using Trial Periods in Job-Share Arrangements

Since April 2003, employees with children under the age of 6, or with disabled children, have had a statutory right to ask to adjust their working hours to suit their childcare arrangements. Employers are not required to agree to such requests, but they must give them proper consideration in accordance with a prescribed procedure.

A recent report of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and Lovells has concluded that most employers have adjusted to their new situations with little difficulty. This accords with the experience of many of our clients, who have already had requests from employees exercising this right for a variety of flexible working arrangements, including requests to 'job-share' their previous full-time jobs.

Job-sharing arrangements can work well for non-supervisory jobs. They do not work so well, however, for supervisory positions or for jobs where information given to one job-sharer may need to be understood and acted on by the other. The greater the volume and complexity of that information, the greater the problem becomes.

As penalties of up to £2,080 can be imposed on employers who do not correctly deal with flexible working requests, employers must consider all such requests seriously. Furthermore, if a refusal cannot be justified objectively, the employer may be liable for unlawful sex discrimination (because more women than men tend to request job-sharing arrangements). So what should an employer do when faced with a request for a flexible working arrangement that they are unsure will work in practice?

Trial periods may be useful to give the employer and the employee time to check whether, and if so how, job-sharing arrangements (or any other flexible working arrangement) could work. A trial period will have to be agreed with the employee and clear targets and objectives should be set. The timescale and consequences of failing to meet those targets or objectives should be explained.

If the trial period shows that the performance of the two job-share partners is significantly less effective or efficient than it was before the job-share arrangement, it should be easy to justify discontinuing it and reverting to the previous arrangement. Without a trial period, performance of the two job-share partners would probably have to be dealt with under the employer's normal performance review procedure. This may establish that the job is simply not suited to job-sharing, or it may highlight weaknesses in one or other or both of the job-sharers. Unfair dismissal law may prevent an employer from simply terminating the arrangement if it does not work out. The employer will have to give sufficient warning and plenty of time to improve. This could be avoided, however, if the arrangement is subject to a trial period.