SOMMER HRUSKA & MARY KAYE STUART Intro

SOMMER HRUSKA: My boss asked me to come back for a friend who was taking maternity leave, and I sat across from Mary Kay. One day I looked over at Mary Kay and I said, “Man, I could do anything three days a week.” And she looked at me and she said, “Wanna job share?”

MARY KAYE STUART: No hesitation. Never look back.

SOMMER: Never look back.

Introduction

INTRO: Welcome to Job Share Revolution. The show about job sharing—a partnership between two people to bring two minds and skill sets to one full-time position. I’m Melissa Nicholson, former job sharer turned founder of the first U.S. job share company. But it wasn’t long ago that I felt like an utter failure at work and as a new parent. Job sharing was my game-changer. I reclaimed four days a week to fully engage in my life while my capable partner handled everything. Together, we achieved more than I ever could solo. Fast forward to many lessons learned to bring you the training and support I wish I’d had to change lives and the modern-day workplace. Let’s live life and slay work.

Melissa Introduction:

MELISSA: Hey there, welcome back to the Job Share Revolution podcast. Can you do me a favor before we get started? You know, my goal is to help as many people job share as possible. Could you share this episode with a friend who could benefit from a better work-life balance? It would mean so much to me. Thank you.

When you think of job sharing, you might not have considered sharing a job with a partner whose background is very different from yours. One reason I’m giddy about this interview with my co-hosts Mary Kaye Stuart and Sommer Hruska is not just because they are Work Muse fans, or because I go way back with Mary Kaye, but because their job share is such a beautiful example of an intergenerational — or as I like to call it, a cross-generational — job share.

In this case, pairing a Boomer and a Gen Xer is important, and their generational differences actually made their job share even more effective. It’s no coincidence that from the start, they were on fire. I think you’ll find so much value in the details of how they navigated their relationships with clients and coworkers — and why, even though they loved their jobs, they decided to job share in the first place.

Mary Kaye stuart and sommer hruska

MELISSA: I’m so excited to be on the podcast today and welcome two amazing, incredible, smart, savvy women — Mary Kaye Stuart and Sommer Hruska.

MARY KAYE: Glad to be here.

SOMMER: Thanks for having us!

MELISSA: Mary Kay and Sommer are not only dear friends—Sommer was a new friend to me, Mary Kay I knew for many, many years—but they are clients of Work Muse. And we helped them get into their very first job share! Sommer job shared after Mary Kay and Mary Kay retired after that job share for a while. Hello ladies, Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

MARY KAYE: Hello! Go Som…

SOMMER: Okay, Sommer here. 18 years in radio. I have two little girls, a family of four, and a 67-acre farm. I loved radio, and then my life became very full. And I felt like my work became less important than my life, so I needed to figure out a change. And I actually left radio altogether. My boss at the time asked me to come back for a friend who was taking maternity leave, and I sat across from Mary Kay.

One day I looked over at Mary Kay and I said, “Man, I could do anything three days a week.” And she looked at me and she said, “Wanna job share?” And I was like, “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no I can’t job share, I can’t job share!” So those three months went by, and then Mary Kay and I decided that we were going to move forward into the job share realm, but did not know how. And then, I was introduced to Melissa.

MARY KAYE: And that’s where Melissa came in and really put a professional stamp on our little, plan that we had hatched. This is Mary Kay. Hello. And I identified very strongly as a very long-time, well-known, well-respected salesperson in the media world. I was making good money, I was having fun, and I really wasn’t ready to give any of that up.

But my cardiologist flat out told me that the long commute, the stress, time spent sitting at my desk was taking literally minutes every day of my life. My husband passed away quite unexpectedly after a brief illness, and that really woke me up as to the fact that time is our most precious resource, and working 48 hours a week was not in the cards for me either.So she became my wifey. See my wifey at work. It took us about two months to make the decision to become job share partners. No hesitation. Never look back. You can do it too

SOMMER: Never look back. It is a change that is, it could be scary. Is very out of the ordinary.

MARY KAYE: All in the mindset.

SOMMER: And if you can make that commitment to yourself, knowing that you need a little more time in your life for your mental and heart work. This is a wonderful alternative to still keep your identity as…

MARY KAYE: a successful career.

MELISSA: I love that you bring up having a successful career through it, because I think that a lot of people worry that if they get into a job share that they’re going to be seen as less dedicated to their career.

MARY KAYE: I think it’s just the opposite. A lot of times in the workforce, as you get older, management views you as less and less valuable. But we being able to partner with a younger coworker, I think our careers took it to another level, and I think our management saw it that way. It was a way to keep relevant, and it was a way to keep Sommer, you know, with her family a little bit more. So they were able to keep her on as a valued employee. It couldn’t have been a better combination.

SOMMER: I feel like sometimes whenever you go into the office, there’s a lot of time spent socializing. One thing that I feel like our bosses saw is that we had a commitment to our job, and when we got there, it was business, and we weren’t going to fail because they had two of us in one position. No balls were going to be dropped.

And I really do think about this. It’s very hard to say these things are important to me, because society as a whole sometimes doesn’t think that your family, your children, your time, your mental health, there’s no value. There’s no value. It makes me teary eyed a little bit. But whenever you have the strength and the support to be able to say, hey, I need to step back and it’s for me, it makes you feel like you’re really doing the right thing.

But it’s hard sometimes because there’s not very many people that have that capacity or the strength or the support to be able to do that.

MARY KAYE: And that’s where Melissa came in and filled in that gap with her music, because she put together a proposal for us to pitch to our bosses that included things in there we would have never thought of on our own.

And so she gave us this map to go in and professionally present our case, and they bought it.

MELISSA: Mary Kaye and I go back a really long time. I started in the radio industry right out of college, and Mary Kaye actually trained me. We had a female GM, and she put in place one of the first job share teams in Austin in the media industry. And soon after that, there were job shares popping up almost paper at the television stations, really in this media area.

There were a lot of women sales reps, and it was a highly demanding job. It never turned off. It was 24/7, and I think that one of the reasons that industry has realized that they can leverage these two minds in one job, doing job sharing. They are commission employees, so they get paid a commission and split that commission.

But in this case, what we did with Mary Kay and Summer was we negotiated the benefits that they needed, the sick and vacation time. We made sure that there were a lot of things in their contract so that they weren’t overworking their negotiated hours, and that they were really able to step into that job share with all the best practices they needed.

SOMMER: It’s the strength. You gave us the strength and confidence. It’s hard to really explain what that means when you’re walking into management when you walk in with confidence and know that they can’t really tell you no. You feel valuable. You feel empowered. You feel like you’re giving them what they need and want, but you’re also receiving. So it also gives you another feeling of…

MARY KAYE: A win-win

SOMMER: Team. It’s a team.

MARY KAYE: Well, let’s face it, Sommer. We weren’t just working for ourselves, we were working for our job partner as well. I mean, I wanted to make those collection calls and those sales calls as much for you as for me. And what a great motivation, you know.

MELISSA: You know, it’s that dual accountability. You’re so accountable to your partner.

MARY KAYE: It’s a beautiful thing.

MELISSA: You are so accountable to one another because you don’t want to let your partner down. And you really act as this team. You share in those highs and those lows together. You’re there to pick one another up off the ground if things aren’t going your way that week. People just don’t know how exciting and how uplifting it is to work with a partner who’s just, you know, you’re right arm.

MARY KAYE: Well, and you have to realize when you’re not there, you don’t have to worry about a thing because your wifey has got it covered, you know, and vice versa. And that’s something I guess, as a salesperson, you’re like you said, it’s on point all the time working even on non-working hours.

On those days off, I didn’t think twice about it. Summer had it covered. There’s not a better feeling.

SOMMER: I will say that there are naysayers out there. I would have people come to me, “Oh, well you want to split your salary for only, you know, two days off?” And I’m like, “No, it’s not just two days off.” You have to be on twenty-four seven in this industry. There’s always someone calling you late night about maybe an ad that didn’t run or or there was a problem at an event or call-ins weren’t right. There’s always something that you have to think about. Well, whenever you’re working, you’re working. Whenever you’re off, you’re off. So you have a moment to reset and relax and be there in a way, for your family or for your friends that you can’t do if you’re always attached to a phone or a computer.

So there is something to be said about having a job share. And honestly, whenever you are in a job cheer like this, you work harder while you’re there.

MARY KAYE: Amen. 

SOMMER: And you may have a little bit of a cut and pay, but you make up for that in the hard work that you do while you’re there because you don’t get complacent.

MELISSA: Honestly, whenever I first started job sharing, and of course, I was doing it with my partner on a ship with no oars people, we were making it up as we went along, figuring out our job share ourselves, and how we were going to actually really melded into one cohesive team. Within that first year, I made 90% of my previous year’s full-time income because we were so productive and efficient and so focused, it was almost like you took those five days and shrink-wrapped them into three days.

And then with that one full day of overlap where you could divide and conquer, or you could synergize together and go in for meetings. And sometimes we would go in and we would have five, six, seven meetings in a row and just really knock those out. And it’s not only about working part-time, making the income that you need even more than the flexibility.

It’s about this different way to work that’s really supportive and really just brings you kind of like a big refresher coming in to work every week. Like you just are excited to be there and knock things off and then see your partner that one day a week.

MARY KAYE: Yes. Like you said, though, you don’t even realize all those kind of intangible benefits until you really get into it with your partner. I mean, you prepped us for everything, but there was more to come when we finally got into it, don’t you think, Sommer? I mean, good stuff.

SOMMER: Yes, we did ramp up now ours. You know, we were kind of the experiment people in our well, there were a couple in our company, but they did not work out well at all.

MARY KAYE: Right.

SOMMER: And for other different reasons. And I honestly think maybe it was the match.

MARY KAYE: It was…

SOMMER: But I feel like our match was good. We did have a month of ramp-up together because I was not in the industry at that point so that we could figure all of that out, and then we hit the ground running.

MARY KAYE: The book was the main, main thing to have. The Book

SOMMER: 1,000%. 1,000%. It may seem like it’s….

MARY KAYE: You told us that, Melissa.

SOMMER: It may seem like it’s something that you should have online or whatever, but sometimes computers don’t work. You know what I mean? It’s real nice to write down your tasks, and it’s real nice to mark them off and make sure you know where they’re filed. Systems. Systems were very important.

MELISSA: Really, it’s those jobs are teams that decide what works best for them because everybody’s different. They decide those processes. They as a team make those decisions together. Mary Kaye, you know, you and I worked together years ago at the time that I was job sharing. I came to you at one point because I was in between partners and said, “Oh, Mary Kay, would you consider a job sharing and coming over here and working with me at that time?” You told me, “I can’t even imagine that my kids are grown. I don’t know what I would do with my time.”

MARY KAYE: I do remember saying that, and I did believe it at the time. I think a lot, and I had worked 30-some-odd years in this business. I so identified with who I was in this business that I couldn’t imagine, you know, delegating some of that, control some of that client list over with someone else.

I just couldn’t see myself. I thought, I just need to be, you know, the salesperson that I’m identified with. Obviously, the minute you presented all the benefits and we started really talking about it, I may not have been ready to retire, but I sure was ready to go to three days a week. That switch didn’t take long to turn off.

MELISSA: You went through something in your personal life

MARY KAYE: You know, just like Summer said, a lot of times it’s these life changes that spur us on to making a change. We can’t do this like this anymore. It’s not working. And this hard-headed woman needed to, you know, a loss of a husband. I’ve had a few heart issues. My cardiologist is like, “Wake up and smell the coffee. You’re getting a little older. You don’t need to be doing that commute. You can do this without giving your job up.”

He was even the one kind of supportive of all this. And I’m telling you, it made me feel so empowered. I can do this three days a week. But yet, gosh, those two days we had went like that in the Sommer? Before you knew we were back at work. (laugh)

MELISSA: I know the big concern that a lot of people have when they’re thinking about job sharing is how they see themselves in the world. That identity is so strong with them. And it’s really hard for them to imagine giving up control.  And so it’s hard for them to think, how could someone else come in on my job?

There’s so many aspects to it, and I just don’t know that it’s going to be the same quality of work that I have. That is the thing that job shares when they first start job sharing together, have to do. Because we don’t have a society that rewards us for collaboration.

MARY KAYE: It’s mine, it’s mine,

MELISSA: It’s mine. I’m the person who did all this work. But truly, once you start doing it and you start realizing this person’s going to do it differently than me, but there’s a lot that I can learn from this other person in the way that they do it.

MARY KAYE: Yes, and I did learn a lot, and I have to bring this up. Obviously, our ages are a little on the different side, summers quite a bit younger than I, but we always loved the fact that she brought, I’m going to say, a youthful breath of fresh air and vitality to the job. I brought the experience and the, you know, maturity of it all,

MELISSA: the relationships.

MARY KAYE: It was a beautiful mix

MELISSA: You’re exactly right. Because there is something wonderful employers can do. And having cross-generational job shares, they’re an incredible succession planning strategy. So someone who might be close to retirement but not ready to retire, and that employer wants to take advantage of all their know-how, those deep relationships, yes, they have that institutional knowledge that comes from a 30-year career.

And then the other person that they job share with, maybe their job sharing with a millennial, but their job sharing with someone who really knows all the tech skills, that has a different skill set and they can really professionally develop one another and kind of bring one another into a different level of working. 

MARY KAYE: No question about it. It was a perfect mix, right, Som?

SOMMER: Yes. So. So to back up just a little, you know, every good employee I think finds an identity of them within themselves from their job. And so in my 20s, I did great with, you know, work, work, work, work, work. It was putting in all the extra hours, and hitting those goals. All of those things were so very important.

And then as life goes on, as I call it, it gets fuller with homes and husbands and kids and your job is important, but it’s not necessarily your identity. And when that switch kind of starts to happen, you find, I’m going to check my ego at the door and say, okay, it’s okay for me, not to one as much.

I’m not a less valued employee. I will find somebody to match and be able to do what I am able to do, and we can create something where everyone is happy and you have such a good work-life balance, which then trickles down into a wonderful life outside of work, where you’re not stressed out all the time because you have all these clothes or food or things to cook and clean and take care of, you have time to do that on your own and a partner at work that you trust.

So again, going back to being mentally prepared to make a change in work that’s going to make your life at home flourish. And we both found that because we both have the same type of outlook, and priorities. 

MELISSA: We’re at this real inflection point. Work has changed so much. Who knew that remote working would open up to everybody overnight?

I know that you went into job sharing for reasons of health and well-being. That Sommer had a huge commute, and this family and Mary Kaye was really just reassessing her life. And things were screaming at you, Mary Kaye, like, “Hey, wake up, listen here. We don’t want you to just not wake up one day, Mary Kaye.”
How did job sharing help your well-being?

MARY KAYE: Let’s face it, any time you split a workload of any kind, it obviously takes off a huge burden off your shoulders. Yeah. All of a sudden, I’m not responsible to make that huge goal every month on my own. I’ve got a 50% partner to help me do it. So that right there was a huge weight off my shoulders.

My other well-being. And this is going to sound very catty. We were looked upon by the rest of our staff. They were very jealous of us. This was in the days when people were working five days a week in the office or more. They thought we were, you know, privileged because we only had to work three days a week. I wasn’t used to that.

MELISSA: You had a unique challenge that almost no other job shares are privy to. You were fully trained in job sharing. You had a coach to hold your hand through the process. You had the best practices to really onramp your job share with ease.

So the truth is that a lot of jobs share teams because they are doing it without a playbook, and they’re figuring that out as they go along, including what their systems and their practices are, but also just how to step into the mindset of a “we” personality, of working with another team member hand in hand who is your partner in this job? What happened, I think, with you guys is that you had all of this great coaching and training on that front end, so when you started in your job share, you lifted off really quickly, didn’t you?

MARY KAYE: Yes, we really did.

SOMMER: We were surpassing goals 150. I mean, we were it was ridic… We had made our goal within six months of the we it was just up and up for us whenever we. Yeah, we were able to hit the ground running… And again, never talk bad about our work life and always made sure that if there were any concerns, we could write it in the book, or we just call each other on the way home or something and let them know if there was anything happening during the day.

MARY KAYE: Right. But we definitely had some jealousy issues, did we not?
SOMMER: Yes.

MELISSA: There is a common thing in job sharing, and I call it the Triangle Principle, where one person will often play those job share partners against one another. And a lot of times it comes up when people first start job sharing because people are confused and there is a little jealousy. Sometimes they don’t know who’s responsible for what.

They can’t quite wrap their heads around the fact that one knows, the other will know. So you almost have to train the people who work around you. And in your case, you lifted off so quickly. And I remember meeting with you after your job shared 5 or 6 months together, and I remember you telling me that your manager had said, “Mary Kaye and Sommer are just on fire! They have got a pep in their step. Look at them. They are rocking their business. What are they doing?”

And I think that enthusiasm that your boss had and carried over into your entire team, which I have no doubt that your job share, actually benefited and lifted up your entire team when they saw that enthusiasm. But in the beginning, that can feel a little bit like a slap in the face.

Like what? These people are only working three days a week.

MARY KAYE: Exactly. And that’s just their limited knowledge of what job share is. And that’s why we need you, Melissa.

MELISSA: It is also one that surprised me when I first started working with you, because I didn’t think about the backlash that could come because you left off so quickly, because you’re so successful.

MARY KAYE: Well, it wasn’t any kind of jealousy between here and I. It definitely came from our staff.

MELISSA: But also, I think there are things that people can do to ease those stakeholders into the process, to help them understand that, you know, we are still here for you. We’re just working in a different way. We just have to work in this kind of focused way. I might not be going to lunch with you, or I might not be going to a happy hour with you or doing some of the things I did before But we’re still here for you and for the entire team. We are human beings, aren’t we?

MARY KAYE: And we’re going to all have those feelings, you know, good and bad.

MELISSA: I think that that’s part of it is helping to nurture coworkers and even your clients and managers and people in other departments along with you, so they understand, oh, this is what it is. We’re just working in a different way. 

SOMMER: Sometimes my response would be, “You could do it too. You can do this too”—job sharing.

MARY KAYE: Right, when they would say something, we’d say, you really need to try this. It’s great. You could do it.

MELISSA: You may not realize it. There are so many people that that was an inspiration to, even if they were the ones who were jealous of you in the beginning, they will remember that you may have been working with some folks who were in other departments, or who were fresh in their careers.

I was 22 years old when I saw my first job share team. I had no idea I get married, I had no idea I’d have kids. I thought I was going to be an actor at that time to down the line, they remember that example. You’re opening a door so that somebody can come behind you.

MARY KAYE: I love that, and you bring up a good point, Melissa. It’s all about timing. You know, when you’re ready, you’re ready and you’ve got to strike when it’s hot.

SOMMER: At first I was like, “No, I’m not going to do this job share,” and then she called me a couple of months later and I said, “Yes, I want to do this job share!”

MARY KAYE: Just like I did with Melissa and I.

MELISSA: What was the turning point for you, Sommer?

SOMMER: It was the end of the summer and my girls are going back to school.

MARY KAYE: You had also worked the maternity list and felt what it felt like.

SOMMER: Yes, that know both girls were still in school. They were so young we didn’t have activities to do and my husband was a nurse, so we were able to work out his schedule to where he would work three (days) and I would work three (days), and we didn’t have to worry about childcare. So that was a big deal for us as well.

And I still did have that work identity. I love live music. That’s part of me, that’s part of who I am, and that’s the part of the job that I love the most. Seeing the clients result because you were connecting with people that love music. I found a lot of joy in that. I just didn’t need to do it every day,

MARY KAYE: But we really didn’t know that we could cut back and not do it every day until we really did it, started looking into it, and then hearing Melissa’s proposal, you know? I didn’t think it would be possible. And look at it, it is!

SOMMER: Having health benefits for both of us, that was a number one that was within the proposal. Both of us needed health benefits. You know, they could have said no, only one of you gets it. And no, actually, we’re working enough for both of us to be valuable enough to this company to give us both insurance. And we got it.

MELISSA: I think of it as train the trainer. Whenever you are proposing a job, share, that the employer has to understand the benefits of leveraging those two skill sets, those two minds and those two lived experiences in that one job.

You do have some power in that because you are actually proposing a work practice that is going to financially benefit your employer. So people want to negotiate those things up front. You want to negotiate your flexibility, you want to negotiate your benefits. And it’s really important for those two partners to be equal in every way. If one person has benefits and the other doesn’t, it’s always going to feel uneven and it’s just going to put a little extra rock on your partnership. A little cloud.

MARY KAYE: I agree with it. Yes, it has to be equal. You know, some people go, oh 6040 or no, it’s 50/50 or nothing. It can’t work any other way in my opinion.

MELISSA: Wouldn’t you say, you know, I’ve shared with four partners in my almost ten years of job sharing. My last partner, we job shared, I think, three and a half years together. I loved working with her. She had a lot less experience in the same field as I did, but she had all those qualities that make for a really good job share partner, and she was just a team player in every way. But I think that one of the things that was difficult in the beginning, when we started job sharing because of our experience difference, that a lot of people would treat her as though she was my assistant and I would say, “No, no, no, no, no, no. She is my equal. What you tell me, you can tell her and vice versa.”

MARY KAYE: It’s got to be that way. It can’t work any other way. And we’ve discussed it, Sommer. We brought up names of people like, well, what about that one? Oh, no. They would definitely turn the job share partner into an assistant. 

SOMMER: And you know, there is again a learning curve whenever you start and it’s different because this when I walked into Mary Kaye’s list, our clients you know the her babies, you know, there were certain ones that would only really want to talk to Mary Kaye. But we got over that.

MARY KAYE: We did. We had too

SOMMER: they love me like they love Mary Kay. She made it so. 

MARY KAYE: But you know it regardless of the job, the basics are still there to be a successful job. Share the trust, the equal ness, the communication. That’s all the same, regardless of the job. Don’t you agree

SOMMER: 100%? Yes.

MELISSA: Yeah, job sharing can work in almost any field. Again, the research says it has a lot more to do with the personality and the work style fit for the individual. If it’s a great fit for the person and they know what kind of traits to look for in a partner, they know the kind of discussions to have, and then they work through the details of that partnership together.

That’s what makes for a really successful partnership, and you really want the support of your manager. That buy in is crucial because very much that can really hold up a great partnership from being superstars.

MARY KAYE: Yes, and we were lucky enough to have that. And a lot of that was because of the way we laid it out in the beginning. It was very clear, it was very succinct, and  we stuck to our guns. It was kind of this way or the highway.

SOMMER: We kind of told we kind of told the company what we were gonna do. We’re like okay, we’re going to go ahead and work together for this month to get everything together. And then, after this, we’re going to do these days, and this is how this will work. And, you know, we’ll need to move our sales meetings to Wednesdays because that’s the day that we work together. So things kind of did get moving around because of us, and it made us feel good. Not sure these were easy changes, but it made us want to work harder too, because our company believed in us.

MELISSA: If I recall right, it took a little while to get your one-on-ones on the same day with your manager, and that is one of those things that is really important that you’re both in the room, that you’re both they’re accountable for what you’ve done for the week together.

MARY KAYE: Well, it’s funny you bring that up because I happened to be, working the day that normally our one-on-ones were. So in the beginning, it was just me in there. And I happened to hate one-on-ones

SOMMER: And I love them.

MARY KAYE: And so we were like, yeah, this isn’t work. And I never did like those one-on-ones. And I was the one having to do them. But we worked it out. We got it to where we were both in. and you’re right, that made a huge difference.

SOMMER: And it took a while.

MELISSA: And you’re saying summer left when I’m. When I love she love now, what’s the great thing about job sharing? You hated the one-on-ones Mary Kaye, Sommer loved the one-on-ones. When I was job sharing, my partner could not stand to do collections calls. I didn’t mind it exactly. That’s the thing that you can do. Those things you can’t stand doing in your job or you’re not good at, and they just kind of suck and tug at you until they bring you down about your job. You find a partner who’s great at those things and enjoys those things. How you work in your job share helps with making you happier in that job itself.

MARY KAYE: You should probably talk to our families because they’re the ones that benefited even more than us, from us being so much happier and available.

MELISSA: Yeah, tell me about that. Tell me how it impacted your life at home, the days that you weren’t working. What was that like?

MARY KAYE: I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I was able to take on a few little freelance writing jobs that brought me great joy. So, you know, that was a whole different path I was able to take. I was able to help out my daughter by watching the new baby a day or two a week. I was definitely able to be more social because I didn’t have to wake up early in the morning every day. I mean, I could go on and on. Sommer, I bet you too.

SOMMER: II was able to take joy in the little things. Meaning guess what? Yeah, I’ve got to cook three meals this week and I’m going to have to clean up after it. Like that’s okay. Like, I don’t mind because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. And I don’t dread Sunday nights.

MARY KAYE: Yes. Do not dread Sundays.

SOMMER: Oh, having Sundays was just amazing because I work the back half of the week. Sunday never has the Sunday Scaries never. It made me actually be able to slow down and not be annoyed with my children. If they’re taking too long or too tired to be able to go outside and play. It was really just having a moment as well to sit down on the front porch with some coffee and enjoy it without feeling guilty or knowing that I had to go run to a meeting.

MELISSA: A lot of people have a difficult time turning work on and off and having boundaries around when they work, and they’re putting kids to bed and then hopping on work. How do you think that working in a job share helped with your boundaries and being able to really, like, shrug off work and not think about it at all, knowing that that other partner had it covered 100%?

SOMMER: It didn’t feel like that took long at all, because I knew Mary Kaye and I trusted her. Was I still kind of in disbelief, like, oh wait, it’s Monday morning, all I have to do is take the girls to school, okay, I can do that. So it was very easy.

MARY KAYE: It didn’t take long, and we both had such great experience in the business that there wasn’t a question that it was going to get done, but there’s just nothing like like you said, just turning it off. I have to admit, I used the same principle when I retired. I mean, I was at work the last day working, and then the next day I wasn’t. Period. It’s a lot easier than you think. Trust me.

MELISSA: Sommer, when Mary Kay retired you job share it again. Can you tell me about how it was the second time around?

MARY KAYE: Don’t forget, it was now her list that she was sharing, right?

MELISSA: Yes, her clients.

SOMMER: I went full-time for a little while because I didn’t know who my job share partner was going to be, and I wasn’t going to just hop into anything. There was a dear friend of mine who was working as a buyer. She called my manager and said, hey, I might be looking for another job.

My manager called me into the office and said, “Hey, what about this?” So my boss is the one that actually found her.

MELISSA: Your boss found your job share partner?

SOMMER: Yes.

MELISSA: Amazing.

SOMMER: And so, she told me that this was happening. And then I started the conversation with my friend, and within a month, she was there, right next to me.

MELISSA: And I would like to say your work-wife slash work person doesn’t have to be the same gender as you. They don’t have to be a parent or a parent. They don’t have to be at the same stage in life. In fact, your differences will make you better together.

SOMMER: Yes, your clients will always have something different to talk to you about. If you’re different.

MELISSA: Yes. What was it like for your clients to have both of your personalities, both of your ideas there when you’re working through marketing problems together?

MARY KAYE: They absolutely loved it. They just needed to know that Summer knew what she was doing, and it didn’t take too long for them to know that.

SOMMER: There was a little bit of a time where people wanted to talk to Mary Kay, but the one thing that I was able to do was come in and make sure that I answered it right away, whenever, if they had a question about something, I’d also come up with some really cool creative ideas for them and start throwing things out there to them.

To where? Oh well, you can still kind of do the same thing, but what about trying a little bit of something different here? And we got some of the clients that have never tried anything new to try some new things, and then you also get more face-to-face time and you see that their success and then they loved it.

There were some times where, certain agencies or clients would come and Mary Kay would be like, I know exactly what they want. Let me take care of that. It just sometimes felt safe coming from her.

MARY KAYE: Sommer basically made her mark. She was not afraid to bring her personality to the table, and we’re both very outgoing, but we both have kind of different approaches. So once they saw that and obviously saw my support of her doing that

MELISSA: And y’all’s job share, Sommer was coming into your job.

MARY KAYE: Correct.

MELISSA: You might have 40 or 50 clients a month. Sommer really had to learn your clients, and that’s just a process that takes some time, and it takes people a little bit of time to get comfortable with the other person, just like I’ve experienced.And I’m sure you guys have experience. People have a lot of questions about it in the beginning. It’s upon the job your team to set them at ease and realize, oh, you get both people.

MARY KAYE: And that was the angle we took. Now you’ve got two of us for her. And that really went over very well, actually, that double effort kind of thing worked well with management and with clients.

SOMMER: And since I’ve been in the business already, I knew the business, I just didn’t necessarily know the people. There had been a few of them that I had worked with in the past, but they had never worked directly with me.

MELISSA: A lot of people listening to this, they’re hearing about your job share story and how it really transformed your health and well-being. Being able to really let that work hat slip completely off you and not be having it always in the back of your mind. What advice would you just give them?

MARY KAYE: My advice is when you enter into a job share, you need to come in with a blank slate. Let go of any prior or control issues or fears. Go in confident. Go in educated. Let it all go. And then you build together what you’re going to look like in the work world with the two of you. Do not be afraid to go into that good night.

SOMMER: I would say make sure that you make the commitment to yourself. You’re doing this for you. You’re doing this because you know you need a change inside. And if you’re not happy, you have to figure out a way to be happy. And so once you made that commitment to yourself that you’re going to do it, I feel like that’s probably one of the number one hardest decisions. And then have the community, pick your right partner, and have the knowledge and support to be able to make that dream become a reality.

MARY KAYE: Make the commitment and stick to your guns,

MELISSA: I love it! Thank you so much for talking with me today.

MARY KAYE: Well, thank you for getting us on that path, Melissa. You were a huge part of our getting together and doing this.

SOMMER: When Mary Kaye, you know, talked to me about it, she said, I know the person that we need to talk to. Whenever we talked about doing a job share—the time that you spent with us, the experiences that you shared, and straight-up words on paper of the things that we needed to give to our corporate offices. Everything was top-notch

MARY KAYE: Invaluable.

SOMMER: and there was no reason for them to tell us no. Us having that confidence and having your backing—it got us the “yes.” So we are very thankful for you. You’re a wonderful person, a great friend. Thank you.

MARY KAYE: Thank you, Melissa,

MELISSA: There’s nothing that makes me feel better than hearing those words come from former clients. I can only help people by teaching them everything they need to know, but it’s really up to the individuals to make it happen for yourself. And it takes that self-advocacy, self-confidence, and taking the leap of faith.

MARY KAYE: And it’s worth it.

SOMMER: You need your tribe. And this is a good tribe.

MELISSA: Yes, you need your tribe. And this is a good tribe. Yes.

MARY KAYE: Amen.

Outro Melissa

MELISSA: I love how Mary Kaye and Sommer lay out how intentionally creating their plan to job share made such a difference during their negotiation, and job shares lift off. In fact, they lifted off so quickly they surprise themselves and their boss. I think my biggest takeaways were how they worked with stakeholders, and how joint ownership of work, projects, and deliverables took a giant weight off their shoulders by trusting their capable partner.

Talk about lowering your overwhelmed stress and burnout. My second takeaway was the importance of partners being treated equally. Even if the partnership is designed with different percentages of the workweek, it needs to be equitable for both partners. In such a live-to-work society. I found it refreshing to hear how job sharing impacted other parts of life that society doesn’t deem worthy.

Like Mary Kaye taking on writing jobs for fun or summer finally slowing down to be truly present with her kids, but more so for herself. You can check out the show notes to episode eight with links to blogs featuring Mary Kaye. Ann Summers job share at work muse dot com forward slash eight. You can check out the show notes to episode eight at workmuse.com/8