The Conference Board report noted that the greatest challenges to instituting job sharing include management resistance and skepticism, corporate culture and the specific nature of the job. Those who lack experience with job sharing often worry about compensation and benefit costs, management of an extra employee, and consequences if the arrangement fails. The study did not find significant problems based on resentment from coworkers, scheduling difficulties, duplication of work, and union negotiations. Difficulties did arise, however, from job sharers' differences in work styles, communications styles and quality standards. It does, however, require more work than other flexible options, including evaluation of how it will fit into the overall work flow.
Success is often due to the people who compose the team.
Commitment, compromise and communication are the core qualities required for job sharing. One HR manager who found job sharing difficult to arrange, but nonetheless, worth the trouble is Beth Gulding, director of human resources at the National School Board Association, based in Alexandria, Va. Gulding finds that in an organization of its size, the HR burden of administering a job share program falls on fewer people. She is nonetheless pleased with the way it's working out. The key, in her experience, has been flexibility on the part of the supervisors and department directors.