Simone McLaughlin + Rachel Mence launch job share speed dating event in Melbourne on Apr 28
Two job-sharing startup founders have decided to take action by joining forces to create Australia’s first job share networking event, specifically for advertising creatives this time, but with more to follow.
Simone McLaughlin, Jobs Shared CEO and former Advertising Account Director and Rachel Mence, CEO of ShareMyJob, have teamed up to create an event that they believe can help solve the advertising industry’s gender imbalance and flexibility problems on Thursday April 28th, 6:45pm for a 7pm start, Swensk – 1/230 Little Collins St, Melbourne.
Contact: info@jobsshared.com.au or www.jobsshared.com.au/events.
The job share speed dating style event will bring together around 20 Melbourne creatives interested in part-time opportunities in the advertising industry. Job sharing seems like a natural fit for advertising, yet is rarely used as a way to offer staff flexibility. Attendees at this event will get all their questions answered and more on how job sharing works and what makes for a good job share partnership. Attendees will then get an opportunity to “speed date” potential job share partners.
For those who find their job share partner on the night, support will be provided in how their new partnership can progress beyond that first date. For agencies looking to hire some highly productive creative talent, get in touch to send a representative along.
Creativity is not gendered and neither should be the opportunity to work within Advertising; however when 43% of female creatives who have left agencies are leaving to find a better work life balance, we have the makings of a big gender problem. Diversity is important in any profession, but especially in an industry built on creativity, influencing what we believe and how we behave in relation to the services we use and products we consume. A study by EY shows that after competitive pay and benefits the top things employees say are very important in a potential job are: ‘being able to work flexibly and still be on track for a promotion’ which was tied with ‘working with colleagues, including my boss, who support my efforts to work flexibly’.
Unfortunately advertising has failed to adapt to changing workplace behaviour and its lack of flexible work practices has started to impact its ability to retain staff, especially its top female talent, and is now showing signs of struggling to attract top graduates into the industry. Innovative ways of working are emerging through new tech-enabled collaboration tools like Slack and the advertising industry simply isn’t keeping pace with such changes in how we live and work. Part time positions simply do not exist in ad agencies, in part, due to increasingly tight deadlines; but by not providing the flexibility required to accommodate those who do more than just work, the industry will struggle to attract and retain not just women, but the best millennial talent, who’ll seek opportunities for creativity elsewhere.
Job sharing teams will provide agencies two creative minds for the price of one, while allowing agencies to offer their staff the flexibility to do whatever it is they want and need to do outside of work. These job share creatives will be less likely to burn out, will be highly productive employees and be more likely to stay. Job sharing is a win-win solution for flexibility; especially in an industry where we all know two heads really are better than one.
Details:
Date: Thursday April 28th.
Time: 6:45pm for a 7pm start.
Venue: Swensk – 1/230 Little Collins St, Melbourne.
Tickets: $20 (by application – link provided to those selected to purchase tickets).
Requirements: creatives only – Must have LinkedIn profile.
Contact: info@jobsshared.com.au or www.jobsshared.com.au/events.