Why care? #3: Sophie Smallwood – The Job-Sharing Solution
“As a manager, this type of work arrangement is phenomenal, because I can give the flexibility and then I can get the coverage and help meet my quota.”
In this episode, Sophie Smallwood, Co-founder of Roleshare talks to me about her first maternity leave experience where she took a full year but was actually feeling ready to come back before that, if there would have been the option of 3 days. She tells me about her experience of overcoming the challenges to come back to a fast-paced organisational environment of a digital global player (Facebook), a challenge faced by many successful career women.
She explains the story about how she took a leap of faith to set up her tech start-up company, Roleshare.com, together with her partner, to create a platform to match people wanting to job share and for companies to find their perfect job share pairs. Together we explore why companies do not have a choice to invest in job sharing if they are going to compete for talent. And how they need to make flexibility truly happen for roles at all levels of the organisation and for everyone - not just working mums.
“We believe in equal opportunity for flexibility - gender neutral and reason neutral.“
Sophie Smallwood is a career-driven leader and committed parent, her mission is to enable a sustainable workforce, where people get more from their roles and where full-time balance at work and in life is possible.
She previously worked as a Strategic Client Success Manager at Workplace by Facebook and was a Head of Customer Success at Ebay. Mum of two (her newborn baby features as a special guest on the show!), she speaks five languages and in her free time she can be found on family adventures or on a spin bike.
Roleshare is a matching site for professionals who want to combine their skills to share their roles with others for greater career flexibility.
Transcript
Sophie Smallwood: 00:00
I think a lot of companies out there say that they offer flexible working, and of course, they have to, there’s some legislation around that anyway, but I wonder really, how many do it. It's one thing to say, ‘We offer this, we're wonderful, we have these organisations inside of our company that supports diversity and inclusion and we have women communities inside of organisations, etc.’, that's fantastic, and we need that but how are you enabling that concretely and proactively?
Nadia Nagamootoo: 00:29
Hi, my name is Nadia Nagamootoo, Business psychologist, coach, speaker, and founder of Avenir Consulting, which creates organisational growth and success through inclusion and diversity. We've been discussing the benefits that diversity brings to a company's bottom line performance for decades with more and more evidence, but there are so many questions organisations still have about how to achieve it. How do you create a culture where people feel valued for their uniqueness and the qualities they bring? I believe it's crucial to the future success and sustainability of every organisation that they find the answer to this question to make sure that each employee is not only supported but also appreciated. With this podcast, I aim to get some of the key challenges to creating inclusive workplaces out in the open and start uncovering the solutions to embracing a culture that cares for everyone. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most inspiring people in different countries and across industries who are pushing the boundaries on inclusion and diversity in the workplace, from topics such as parenting in the workplace, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health, and all things inclusion. I want to create a movement to change society by sharing life experiences and creating more empathy and connection. Why care? I believe that once we have organisations and societies that accept and value everyone for who they are, we become healthier, happier, and better in our roles both inside and outside work.
Hello, and welcome to Episode 3 of my Why Care Podcast. My name is Nadia Nagamootoo and I am your host. What are the barriers people, particularly women face when returning back to work after parental leave? What should organisations be aware of in terms of the barriers and benefits of flexible working? And what's the next big thing for flexible working in this next decade? These questions and many more will be answered on today's podcast when I speak to our guest on the show, Sophie Smallwood. She's had an inspiring corporate career at the giants like eBay and Facebook, launching new products successfully through customer engagement. After the birth of her first child, she decided to quit her job and embark on an exciting tech start-up, and she's now a co-founder of Roleshare. We talk about Roleshare, and its mission to disrupt our understanding of flexible working. We also talk about some of the key factors that influence a smooth return to work after parental leave. Finally, Sophie Smallwood explains the policy and behavioural shifts organisations will need to make in the future in order to sustain their competitive advantage. She comes up with some great stories and analogies, which really resonated with me. I hope they do for you too. Sophie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me.
Sophie Smallwood: 03:13
It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 03:16
I'm super excited about talking to you for a number of reasons, in particular, because you're a new parent, again, congratulations to you.
Sophie Smallwood: 03:25
Thank you.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 03:26
And I believe we have your daughter here with us today as well.
Sophie Smallwood: 03:30
Yes. So, we're very attached to each other at this point, she's just a little over one month, so she's also a guest on this podcast. She might make a few squeaks here and there, maybe even louder, we'll see how we go.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 03:43
That's absolutely fine. Well, welcome to her too. I love your profile and what you put out there. When you were pregnant, the photos that we saw of you were real authentic photos, how you were feeling? What are the honest stories of real-life parenthood and working, not everyone's willing to do that, are they?
Sophie Smallwood: 04:01
I suppose I would say, you don't always have a choice. But I was pretty open, and I am pretty open on social media about the fact that I'm a working parent and that you can have it all but you've got to do so in a way that's flexible. And you might not be able to do it in society's prescribed 9 to 5, Monday to Friday.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 04:27
You speak to that, and it's clear from all your messaging that that's what you stand for, which I love. So, this is your second child now and when you were pregnant with your first child, you were working at Facebook, is that right?
Sophie Smallwood: 04:39
Yes.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 04:40
So, I'm really interested actually about the difference in your experience, so from employment and working for one of the largest corporates like Facebook compared to being self-employed when you were pregnant with your second child. What's the difference in those experiences in terms of how you were feeling in the lead-up to taking maternity leave?
Sophie Smallwood: 04:59
There were definitely some similarities but some clear differences. So, I think when I was at Facebook, I was part of a very large organisation, and I knew that my role, in essence, me not being there wouldn't be the end of the world per se. They were going to be getting a contractor in to cover for my bids and I would be coming back to the same role or something within the same realm in essence. When I was preparing to go on maternity leave, I felt quite comfortable, and I was very excited about this new chapter, a first child, there's a lot you can imagine, but very little you actually know. I also was very much thinking about, how am I going to grow in my career after I have this first child? Because my academics and my career have always been a big part of my identity and my self-confidence. And so, having a child, I started to think about, well, how will this impact me and how can I carry on growing? And so, I started to have conversations around, where am I going in this role with some of our senior leadership, and it was all very positive. And then I went away and had my child, and I decided to take a full year. So, I would say, I was probably ready to come back much sooner, but I didn't, because my role was a full-time role, and so I decided, okay, well, since I can't really do my role on a part-time basis, I'll go ahead and take the full year off, it's an amazing opportunity.
So, my preference would have been to go back maybe 3 days a week, 2 days a week, on a part-time maternity leave, but that's not really something that's, I think readily available, generally. And so, I came back after a year and a lot changed. That's normal, a lot of changes, companies carry on but for me, it started to make me think a lot about how much the organisation had changed, yet, I still felt like I was in the same place that I left on when I went on maternity leave. And so, the way it differs this time around is that, well, we're now launching our own business, we're in soft launch mode and I don't have the cushion or the support of a large organisation. On one side, that's a bit more, I guess I would say, unsettling. At the same time, one of the things I really missed the first time around when I was on maternity leave was cerebral stimulation. I oftentimes felt like a little bit numb, really. And so, I would listen to podcasts and things that would stimulate my mind and try to read as much as possible. So, that's why I really miss work because work really challenged my brain. But this time around, that's something I have, I have that because it's our own business, I can pop in and out whenever I want to, bits and pieces to keep me going on the brain stimulation angle.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 07:46
Yeah, that story resonates with me so much. When I had our daughter, I was in employment as well. In fact, at the moment of finding out I was pregnant, there was an initial kind of like, how am I going to manage this career that I've worked so hard for? I don't want anyone to look at me, I was actually worried about how people would then view me as soon as they found out I was pregnant, thinking that I wouldn't be keen to work as hard maybe or as committed anymore as I'd part switched off. And my behaviour, I think was probably the opposite of maybe what some women are like, and people did comment, I actually worked a lot harder. I was almost trying to prove that even because I was pregnant, it just didn't mean that I wasn't capable anymore, or that I was going to switch off.
Sophie Smallwood: 08:28
Absolutely. So true. I felt the same thing in both of my pregnancy experiences. I feel like when I left Facebook, I had an incredible performance review, I always exceeded the expectations you need to get at Facebook and I really left with a strong legacy in essence before entering the maternity leave period. And then with Roleshare, leading up to having my daughter, we were extremely busy, we went to Web Summit, we had speaking engagements, I did a taping at Facebook, just really going 100 miles an hour because I didn't want to necessarily take a seat back and nest as much as maybe my family was recommending. Because I'm like, no, no, I can do this. Being pregnant for me is not a reason for me to take a seat back. That's me but for some people, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 09:19
Exactly, exactly. And I think it is each to your own. But I do remember a lot of people encouraging me to slow down, and that I didn't have to power on and it was okay. And I guess people put on what they believe they would do in that situation and what they believe other women should do. And I strongly believe that actually, every woman should be judging what they want to do and what's right for them rather than looking around and seeing what other women are doing and what's the most appropriate thing to do. So, you mentioned there about returning to work after your first child and obviously, things had moved on. Was that the most challenging thing about coming to work after your first child? What did Facebook do to make it easier for you?
Sophie Smallwood: 10:04
So, when I was at Facebook, we had a number of keeping-in-touch days that we had allocated and I actually use all of them. So, going back through my maternity leave, I specifically picked events where the whole organisation came together. So, whenever there was an off-site because they were a typically really good opportunity to get a summary of what's been happening, like the most important things and the main objectives. So, I showed up to those and I found that that was really great for me to keep a pulse on what was happening without being overly involved. And when I came back from maternity leave, I took a full year off, my role was the same role, in essence, the size of my accounts had shifted a little bit. But my boss was fantastic, she was also pregnant at the time and was flexible and sort of giving me the types of accounts that I wanted. So, if I wanted to go back on the enterprise side, she said, we would absolutely make that happen. So, they were very, very flexible and accommodating. It's understandable that things change when you're gone but I think the fact that my manager was extremely flexible, really helped a lot. Facebook also has a mentoring program for moms who come back. So, you will be matched with another woman who had a child and came back, just as a transition.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 11:27
Okay, amazing. And did you take all of those opportunities, then?
Sophie Smallwood: 11:31
I did. And I was happy to have those choices. And I was very open about my aspirations and what I wanted to do with my role and the level at which I wanted to come back. One thing that was the hardest, wasn't so much the returning that was hard as far as the role and how Facebook supports it, but for me, the harder things were the growth in the organisation. So, when I initially joined Workplace by Facebook, it was a very small organisation, it was in essence, the absolute start-up within Facebook. So, when I came back our company had grown so much. And so, there's all these new faces, and it is sort of overnight, you're almost entering a whole new world. So, hypergrowth was one of the challenges that was to be expected. It's almost like being a newbie, in essence. And another challenge, I think, was that my core team had changed a lot. So, when I left on maternity leave, my core team and I had a really strong bond, in essence, I had been the buddy to everyone on my team who'd been hired, I was the first person on my team. And so, in the time that I was away on my leave, they had all moved on to other parts of the world and they’d moved on to different teams. So, in essence, my team was no longer there. And so that was a bit difficult because you want to go back to your safety net. So, that was a bit of a challenge, I think.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 12:51
And was that acknowledged at all? Because it is hard to be away from the workplace, doing something completely different, having a completely different role for a year, and coming back in and then finding that actually, some of the known entities, things like your team members who you had good relationships, where there was a good performing team actually have disbanded and now you're coming back with a whole bunch of new people. Was that ever acknowledged or addressed in any way?
Sophie Smallwood: 13:16
I don't think it was necessarily addressed but when I came back from maternity leave, we had a team lunch to welcome me back. And again, I had a really good relationship with my manager, I would have one-to-ones on a weekly basis, and so, I would basically just express to her how I felt. So, I felt I could have that dialogue, but on that, really, what can they do, right? The team changes, people move on and when you come back from maternity leave, sometimes that's just the reality.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 13:44
What I suppose is that your line manager was crucial to you feeling comfortable again, feeling back up and running, and being able to share how you were feeling. Is it important that she was a woman, or do you think about how she will go on maternity leave herself and could empathise more or not with her?
Sophie Smallwood: 14:02
I don’t know if it was her being a woman per se. It was her first child, so I think similarly to me, you don't really know until you have your first child. She was just very empathetic and that's just her style. I think also, that was one of the challenges. When I came back from that leave, she left pretty quickly after to go on her own. It's a lot of change coming back, but at the same time, look, I'm really thankful that we get a full year here, if we want it, in the UK. I mean, you can tell from my North American accent that I spent quite a bit of time in North America and the maternity leave period in the US is a joke compared to here in the UK. And you're separated from your child, I think much too early on in the US. On the other hand, you come back to probably an organisation that hasn't changed as much after Mat-leave.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 14:51
Okay, I see that but there is something about the way that the UK operates in terms of holding the role of the parent for up to a year. I think there are not that many other countries, maybe obviously in the Scandinavian countries, who are further ahead in shared parental leave but certainly from what I've compared in other countries around the world, we’re one of the best.
Sophie Smallwood: 15:12
Yes, it's absolutely incredible. I feel extremely fortunate to have had both of my children.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 15:18
So, do you think that that was a common experience for a lot of women returning to work at Facebook? A lot of the research that I've done always talks about the local culture or highlights how important the local culture is. The line manager is so critical and the team is so critical to this transition back into the workplace or supporting people who have caring responsibilities or want to work flexibly. So, did you ever figure out whether it was unique to your area of work at Facebook, or whether other people had similar experiences returning?
Sophie Smallwood: 15:48
I didn’t have anyone at Facebook in particular that had gone on maternity leave and come back around the same time that I did, that we could cross stories. But I think ultimately, I had other friends who'd had children around the same time that I had and they had similar sentiments. They’d taken the full period, the full 12 months, and coming back was a little bit of a challenge but for varying reasons. And a few of them didn't have supporting line managers. And so, it absolutely is core to the return experience. And one thing about Facebook is Facebook as a whole has quite a strong culture but it is very much the micro team culture. In essence, the team culture that your line manager instils will in essence make or break you. I mean, lots of studies out there that say people should go to good companies and leave bad managers. My manager who was about to go on maternity leave was really core to making my experience on Workplace by Facebook, it was really a pleasant experience before Mat leave and when I came back.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 16:54
Amazing. Obviously, we really need to talk about Roleshare here because you decided then to leave what sounds like a really supportive and great place to work after having had your first child to then embark on this incredible journey and start up your own company with your partner called Roleshare. So, tell me a little bit more about Roleshare. What was the need to set it up that you felt, right, okay, this is the time, I need to do this now?
Sophie Smallwood: 17:21
So, before I had my son, as I mentioned earlier, I had this thinking around, how am I going to do it? Or how am I going to balance my career and continue to grow? But at the same time, now I'm bringing this little human into this world who doesn't have a choice. And I really want to make sure that I'm an A player across the board, an A player at work, an A player as a parent. And about 8 years ago or so, maybe even a little more now, I was volunteering in Los Angeles with an organisation that was comprised mostly of women co-volunteers, she was a director of media buying at a very large advertising agency, and she was a mother of young twins. And I remember thinking, how are you making time to volunteer over the top? And she and I remember this very clearly said, ‘I am very lucky, I share my role with another person’. And I'd never heard of this before but she made me realise, wow, this is an incredible opportunity because you carry on having an exciting role that's very strategic and very senior, while at the same time, you are getting a lot of time back in the week to tend to her other responsibilities. So fast forward years later, I'm at Facebook and I'm about to go on maternity leave, this concept popped back up. And I mentioned it to my husband, and he really liked this concept because he has managed people for quite a long time.
And a few of his direct reports have come back after Mat-leave wanted reduced hours, so that's what they did, they reduced 4 days or 3 days. He found that even though he did it, he found it a challenge for him as a manager because though he would accommodate the request and they would work at 80% or so, he still had a 100% quota. And so, he had to somehow make up for it elsewhere. And so, he said as a manager, this type of working arrangement is phenomenal because I can give the flexibility, and then I can get the coverage and help meet my quota still. And so that's what started this idea of creating a marketplace. We both come from a tech background, having worked for large tech companies, so we like to solve things at scale. And so, we thought if we wanted to look for someone to share a role with today and find jobs that are shareable, where would we go? And we couldn't really think of any place truly that was an open marketplace. So, we thought, well, let's build it. And I thought well, this is a really good opportunity for me to now move to focus on a start-up where I can have high-level strategic impact, I can impact the product and that can make a difference. Hopefully, it's sort of a now-or-never type of thing.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 19:55
Incredible. What a leap of faith, people always say that to me when they hear my story about setting up Avenir. And it is a leap of faith, isn't it? Because you write a pros and cons list or maybe not physically but certainly in your head, like, should I do it? Should I not? But it's great here and look what I've got. And yet, there's this exciting draw certainly that I felt to just trying it, going out, seeing if actually, this idea that I have could work and whether it could benefit people's lives the way that I felt it could. And so, tell me Roleshare has an app, explain a little bit more.
Sophie Smallwood: 20:32
Web-enabled. So, we are a website at the moment, but boy, we're mobile-friendly. So, it's not an app that you have to download on your phone, per se but we're a website, I’ll call it we’re platform marketplace, it is two-sided, where you have talent on one side, and on the other side, you have companies. We basically are a matching site for people who want to share roles. So, in essence, think about dating sites out there, it is a similar concept, except we’re matching individuals based on a number of criteria who might be good to work together. So, some people might be very complementary to each other, whilst others might be more like almost identical twins to each other and match on those various criteria, and then potentially giving them opportunities to apply for roles together. So that's the other side of the marketplace. So, we're looking to partner with companies that are looking for more diversity in their workforce, and in essence, looking to open up their talent pool when interviewing for roles and such to individuals who would not necessarily apply for a full-time role because they have other aspirations, or they have other responsibilities outside of work.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 21:42
I was wondering how that's been received. Have people leaped at this opportunity? Have you found this massive market of people who have been struggling to enter back into the workplace and find a career that allows them to balance their life outside of work? Was that what you found?
Sophie Smallwood: 21:58
Yeah, so we're in soft launch mode, we haven't spent a lot of money on marketing yet. So, all of our findings have been through mostly organic social media. And through all of that activity, it's been very, very positive. The people who need this type of flexibility were just generally people who have been thinking about maybe scaling back hours. This working model really resonates with them because it can sustain a senior or strategic type of role. One of the complaints that I hear from people who have done job sharing and maybe even did part-time previous to that is that the part-time role was either part-time pay but really full-time hours, unfortunately, it came out that way, if it was a work week, they would end up having to work. The other challenge is whether it is a part-time role, or a role that's been built to be part-time, some of the feedback we received, and this is qualitative feedback, is that the role was less strategic and less visible.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 22:58
Okay. So, in order to work flexibly or part-time, they've had to almost take a step down in terms of strategic working. Those strategic roles weren't able to accommodate a part-time role, is that right?
Sophie Smallwood: 23:11
Yeah, in some cases.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 23:12
Just in my social circles, something that people just don't think is possible is to return to work in the way that they would like to return to work after having had children or a child. The organisation doesn't really know what to do with them, in the sense of the organisation seems to be and these are stories, and not all organisations, but from the ones I've heard, some of them just are quite rigid, ‘Well, this is the way that the job has always been done, I don't envisage you being able to do it any other way. So, either you come back like this full-time, or condensed hour or something ridiculous, where they really are working full-time hours but being paid part-time, or I'm afraid we can't make this work’. And I've had so many stories like that, and a lot of women, they just either quit completely, they try and look for something a bit more local, which inevitably means it is not in their field or in their area of expertise professionally prior to kids or taking a massive pay cut in order to do so.
Sophie Smallwood: 24:05
Yeah, that sounds very familiar. Also, a lot of the families that I've heard from, different people that we've interviewed are also at the same stage of life that I'm in. I think a lot of companies out there say that they offer flexible working, and of course, they have to, there’s some legislation around that anyway, but I wonder really, how many do it. It's one thing to say, ‘We offer this, we're wonderful, we have these organisations inside of our company that supports diversity and inclusion, and we have women communities inside of organisations, etc.’, that's fantastic and we need that but how are you enabling that concretely? I'd say from a corporate perspective, when a company launches, so at Workplace by Facebook, my previous employer, when we used to launch Workplace by Facebook inside of an organisation, we would require our customers to do an internal communications campaign, announcing the fact that Workplace by Facebook was now available inside of the organisation, here's how you use it and there'll be a big launch event. So, it was an enterprise tool that was being launched inside of the organisation and we really wanted everyone to know about it. There's like changed management that goes with introducing new enterprise communication inside of an organisation. So, if you have a benefit, like flexible working, and you're an organisation that's really supporting D&I, and you're hiring people who have D&I in their titles, then are you also as proactively promoting flexible working models inside of your organisation? Are you having a flexible working week where people can learn about all the different ways of working flexibly and you're sharing these cases? I think that's what it takes to actually make people comfortable and give them the confidence that they can ask to work flexibly and that line managers are expected to support these requests.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 25:59
Yeah, absolutely. So, it's not enough to have the policy, I think that's been proven because A, whilst you might have it on your intranet or whatever system, we've just launched a new policy, with an attachment actually, people might not necessarily actively go and read it. Secondly, depending on how long some of these policies are, they might not find the ones that are completely relevant to them, so you're still not translating, or communicating, actually, how it can apply to people. And thirdly, they don't know whether actually, it's just a tick box or that actually, if you do it, it's going to be negatively harmful to your career. What's the underlying culture, I think I totally get you if we're going to initiate organisational culture change, a mindset shift, which then translates to behavioural change, the organisation needs to communicate it, they need to live it, they need to actively support it, and say because this is how we work here.
Sophie Smallwood: 26:55
Absolutely. And I think another challenge and also an opportunity with flexible working, generally speaking, is, if you think about the persona of flexible working, most people's minds will go to a working mum, it can be standing in the way of making flexible working more accessible to everyone. And so, I think if you look at Aviva, for example, Aviva has introduced a really interesting parental leave policy where now men and women both get a similar amount of paid leave, which is great because it's truly this opportunity for flexibility. And so, I think if we want to drive more flexible working arrangements inside of organisations, it's really important that we position it as something that is available to people without children, to men, and of course, to working moms because if it is just seen as a working mom benefit, then by default, other people are going to in essence reject it.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 27:53
It builds resentment, doesn't it? That I'm excluded, they are only targeting this certain demographic of people, and that's not fair. I do a lot of work around fatherhood and equality in male caring and so I'm totally with you on this. Do you think that Roleshare's main market will be women or do you think that organisationally or societally we've now shifted so that you will get more men or people with other flexible working needs coming and signing up?
Sophie Smallwood: 28:25
I think initially, as with any kind of flexible working, the majority will be women, I mean, that's what we're seeing anyway. We have some great examples of men sharing roles as well, and we definitely want to highlight more of those but I think it's a result of society, we still look at men as the primary breadwinners. We're seeing that shifting in some societies, more women are now becoming the breadwinners but still, there is this notion, I think men still probably relate to that, feel like they have to be the main providers. But it's interesting because also the generation that I'm a part of, men are much more involved with childcare in general and so, they do want more of that flexibility. We need to see a rise in that from all working models. Role sharing is a working model that's been around a really long time, it's not the most highly adopted working model because it's got the complexity of needing two people together to share a role. But on the other side of the coin, now we're in a position where we have technologies that didn't exist when this working model first started to appear in the corporate world. Technology now can help enable it at scale. We're not the only ones, yes, men will be doing it, they will continue to grow as far as adoption but absolutely women are the ones that I think feel more comfortable approaching flexible working anyway. I love the concept of remote working. I see remote working as the trojan horse of flexible working, it's the one model that still has progress to do, but it's the one model that I think more companies are accepting.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 30:11
Do you still think we've got a long way to go then when it comes to encouraging a new phase of flexible working? And the next step in flexible working, which is the job share, the role sharing aspect, do you think organisations still see issues with it?
Sophie Smallwood: 30:26
I think companies are not as familiar with it. There are industries where it's very prevalent, so in those industries, it's not an issue at all. It's more in the private sector, where perhaps they haven't heard of it. They think, well, with this type of role, how could you split a role that's a relationship management role? There are examples of people doing it. So, it's just helping answer the questions that are out there and it will take a little while to get to a position where it becomes a very readily available working model. But it's as with anything, if I think about Uber and Airbnb, I remember when I was younger, I was taking a walk with my grandfather in Switzerland. And just as a joke, I put my thumb out, I was very tired, and I'm like, Grandpa, ‘let's just catch a ride back home’. My grandpa got very angry with me, and he was like, ‘Never, ever accept a ride from a stranger’. And look where we are today. Every moment of my life, if I want to, I can call a lift to come and pick me up. Strangers every time, right? So, it's about aligning with companies that are forward-thinking, who also realise that there's a lot of competition for talent out there, and giving those companies an opportunity to trial and pilot new working models, and just showing them that these working models are successful. I mean, in every job share interview, 90% of the people I've interviewed who have job shared, have had a very positive experience in the job share, and actually were more productive and more efficient and produced more output for the company than they did when they were working solo in a similar role. I think from a productivity perspective, these types of working models are a winner for companies.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 32:06
It is amazing, isn't it? How societally we shift through disruption, we shift what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. And things decades ago, or even last year, that weren't as acceptable, suddenly, something comes along, it disrupts our thinking, and there you are, we're doing something and behaving in a completely different way.
Sophie Smallwood: 32:27
It's also playing to your strengths. So, people enjoy their work more when they get to do things that they're good at. If you feel like you've been put in the right seat on the bus in your working environment, then you're going to be much more satisfied. Sometimes, people leave companies because they were just in the wrong seat, it wasn't the right role, and it wasn't aligned to their strengths. So, if you can just put people in the right seats and sometimes, on a bus, most seats are in essence, there's room for two, it is the same thing with role sharing, it's about identifying, ‘Okay, what are my strengths? Where do we complement each other?’ And in this sense, I interviewed this team from Microsoft who actually are client-facing, they're both internal partner-facing and external partner-facing, and they had their own portfolio. So, your customers would very much have a primary point of contact, it's just that in the days where you're not there, if there is an emergency, and something comes through, something falls through, the other person who's covering the dais could definitely step up and handle the issues at hand. I understood that very rarely happened and their customers actually were oftentimes very impressed about the fact that Microsoft was enabling this working model for their employees.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 33:36
So, it’s a reputational thing there, is that what you're saying?
Sophie Smallwood: 33:39
Yeah.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 33:39
I totally get it. So, I could talk to you all day and all night. I think it's brilliant what you're doing with Roleshare. If you were to choose one big thing that you think organisations should work on and get right in this next decade if we whizzed forward by 2030, what should organisations focus on in this space?
Sophie Smallwood: 34:01
I love that question. It's such a good question. What I would love to see is proof in essence, that these companies are doing what they say they're doing. So, it's not just on the companies, there has to be in essence legislation and policy that requires it. So, last year when companies were required to reveal the gender pay gap. So, we need to have things like that, from a working perspective for it to actually, I think, be upheld by companies. I think the companies that are struggling and really trying to compete for talent are not going to have a choice. They're going to have to think about new working models because the workforce out there requires it. You have the caregiving generation, parents looking after young children, and then those children growing up to look after parents. So, the caregiving generation is just going to continue to grow because people are living longer. Then you have the Millennials that are coming in and many of them are facing the career ultra-marathon.
That's just the reality of their life. So, flexibility is a huge requirement for them. They want career stability but they also want flexibility. And then you have the aging workers who are also having to work longer because they're going to be living longer. And what happens? How do you transition them out with that knowledge? So, there are all of these points of consideration with key populations of the workforce, and companies do not have a choice, they're going to have to adapt and change the way that they're working, and the working models that they're making available to accommodate the expectations and the needs of these populations. So, I don't know what I would say I would like to see, but it's more about having more companies, in essence, state that they understand that this is a reality and seeing them actively promoting job postings that are flexible, I think that's the big thing. And not just saying that, ‘Oh, we will consider a job share, or we will consider part-time applicants,’ but seriously considering them, giving them a real go in the interview process and hiring them.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 36:11
Yes, ultimately, I love that aim and ambition. I think you're totally right, where organisations just won't survive if they don't embrace this properly, not just as lip service, but actually hire people in role shares. I get it, totally. So, thank you so much. I'm really keen for people to connect with you and learn more about Roleshare directly from you if they're interested. So clearly, you're active on social media, that's how we met but just explain what channels they can get hold of you on.
Sophie Smallwood: 36:40
So obviously, connect with me, Sophie Smallwood on LinkedIn, we have a Roleshare page as well, and you can follow us there. We are on Instagram, we have a Roleshare page there, and on Twitter as well, the same handle across the board @Roleshare. And we have a website as well, so Roleshare.com. So pretty much every digital channel out there, you can have us on.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 37:07
Brilliant as you would expect from a tech start-up. Amazing. Sophie, thank you so much for today. I've just loved speaking to you. If anyone wants further information about anything that Sophie and I've spoken about today, then you can go to our show notes page, which is going to be on Avenirconsulting.co.uk under podcasts. And Sophie, I've just loved speaking to you. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing the work that you're doing.
Sophie Smallwood: 37:33
Thank you, Nadia. It was my pleasure.
Nadia Nagamootoo: 37:35
That concludes Episode 3 of my Why Care Podcast. I really hope you enjoyed our conversation. I loved Sophie's determination and focus on disrupting how organisations view flexible working. Those organisations that embrace role-sharing will certainly be ahead of the curve in the fight for talent. Do let Sophie and me know what you thought of today's show. You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter with the handle @NadiaNagamootoo. As always, I really appreciate your support of this podcast by leaving a review on whatever platform you're listening to and spreading the word by sharing it with your friends and family. Once again, thanks to Mauro Kenji for editing this podcast and to Christiane Gross for supporting with the show notes and getting it out there on social media.
