3. The Job Sharing Solution with Sophie Smallwood

“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. Roleshare is a matching site for professionals who want to combine their skills to share their roles with others for greater career flexibility. 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. Show links: Follow Sophie on her personal LinkedIn page or the Roleshare LinkedIn page. Twitter @roleshare or Instagram @roleshare.