You have finally found a job but it is only part-time and you desperately need a full-time position. In France, there is a solution to this problem: work sharing (TPP - Travail à Temps Partagé). This phenomenon remains marginal, but it is starting to lure in companies and employees.
Work sharing, launched in France in 2005, has begun to develop. This employment approach allows an employee to work full-time on a permanent basis, but by working for multiple companies. For example, the employee spends 3 days a week with employer X, 1 day with Y and the other with Z. The worker is able to reconcile these different jobs easily, as the companies he/she works for form part of the same network.
In France, these groups of work sharing employers or companies (ETTP - Entreprises de Travail à Temps Partagé) are called Vénétis, Helys or Cornoualia. They recruit people on a permanent basis and see to placing them in various roles, with differing levels of commitment to ultimately create a full-time job.
This employment approach is particularly suited to small companies, which are often unable to offer full-time work. Many of them need an HR manager or accountant working 20 or 30% of the time, however, they sometimes find it difficult to recruit a specialist who only wants to commit to such a small amount of work. With work sharing, they are guaranteed to have a competent employee who will stay in the role, as he/she has other parallel jobs.
This approach is also attractive for workers. It does away with precarious contracts and the struggle to combine various jobs without getting a real salary at the end of it. This innovative model also allows employees to avoid routine and to stay motivated in their work.
Who knows, maybe this flexible and attractive approach will soon take off in Switzerland!
Christelle Genier
