Careers supported by part-time work – Sharon’s story

Sharon is the working parent and carer of a severely disabled daughter. She shares with us how successfully negotiating a part-time, job-sharing arrangement as director of a Devon-based PR agency has changed her life. Her inspiring story shows how understanding and flexibility on all sides has allowed her to achieve a work-life balance, preserve her mental wellbeing and sense of identity, and become a better employee.

Can you talk us through your decision to start working on a part-time basis?

I work in a small PR agency. After the birth of my first daughter, I knew I wanted to return on a part-time basis, and I’d heard about job shares. It was about getting a better work-life balance.

My maternity cover was brilliant and I knew I could work well with her so I asked her about setting up a job share with me.  We did a lot of research and wrote a proposal for our boss, setting out the business case. We’ve now been successfully job sharing for 14 years.

How supportive was your employer?

Job sharing had never been done in our company before, but the owner of the business was open-minded about it. I wrote a proposal for the job share, also setting out the benefits to the business, including the facts that there would be two experienced brains working on everything.

How vital was part-time working to you when your second daughter was born, given your caring responsibilities?

Part-time working and job sharing has been absolutely essential to me. After my daughter was born, she seemed fine until she was 18 months. Then she had her first seizure at 3pm the day after Boxing Day 2015. At first, we hoped it might be just one of those things and the doctor agreed.

But two weeks later, it happened again. Suddenly she started jerking and dropping to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut about 20 times a day.

She is now 10 and has a condition called Lennox Gastaut Syndrome. She has a severe learning disability and has had many thousands of seizures over the years. She has spent significant time in hospital and, due to the unpredictability of her condition, we have to be very flexible about how we live our lives.

Sometimes my husband and I have to drop everything when she’s having multiple seizures. But my colleagues are great. They are understanding and supportive and I have a desire to give back to my company, because of that.

Have you had to deal with any stigma from people who think you should be at home full time with your daughter?

We definitely have raised eyebrows at the fact that I’m working, particularly as a woman. It’s subtle, but it’s there. That attitude is reflected in an official statistic that is outrageous; only 16% of mothers with disabled children work, compared to 61% of other mothers.

When we became carers, I soon realised why parents of disabled children would struggle to work, the admin alone feels like a full-time job, so my husband and I split the responsibilities.  He became ‘head of medical’ and I’ve become ‘head of social and education’. We say this tongue in cheek but the split of the mental load is real, and it works.

Sharing our caring responsibilities and working part-time means that I can keep working which is instrumental for me in maintaining my sense of identity and looking after my own wellbeing.

How does your company benefit from your part-time status as a carer?

I know that my caring experience makes me a better employee than I was before I became a carer.

I bring a lot of knowledge about diversity and inclusivity issues from my own lived experience. Then there are all sorts of other things such as enhanced communication skills, problem solving and leadership skills, all learnt from coordinating my daughter’s team of 10 carers and enablers.

As a leader in the business, I’m open and honest about the hard stuff. I hope that showing my vulnerability is creating a culture where other feels able to share and be supported.

And I can be cooler in a crisis than I’ve ever been before. When you’ve seen your child have a 40-minute seizure, there’s nothing that can scare you about work anymore. An old boss of mine used to have a saying, ‘it’s PR, not ER’ – that’s now been brought into sharp focus for me.

As a part-time worker, I think I am more efficient on my workdays.  On my working days, I’m raring to go and I can give work my all, knowing that I have my non-working days to focus on my responsibilities at home.

How has your ability to work part time been important for your health and your wealth, in both the short and long term?

Part-time work allows me to escape the stresses of my home life and immerse myself in the work that I trained to do. It allows me to use my brain in a different way and is absolutely fundamental to my wellbeing.

Every day when I work, I’m reminded of the skills I have, and it gives me a lot of confidence. I think I’m a fairly confident person, but I can really see how in quite a short space of time out of work, that confidence can start to erode.

So yes, it has a huge beneficial impact on my mental health, and certainly for my and my husband’s relationship. He works in commercial film so both of us have been able to keep that creative outlet.

I’m aware I’ve been fortunate: I live close to my work; I’ve got a job share and I’ve got an understanding employer. However, my job share and I also bring two sets of skills to the business which brings increased efficiency in our role.

I would love for my experience to be more ‘the norm’, for all carers wanting to remain in work and for employers to see the mutual benefits of enabling more part-time work in professional roles.