Top Lloyds lawyers in job share

By flexibleboss on July 29, 2013 • ( 0 )

Two of Lloyds Banking Group’s top lawyers are job sharing, it has been revealed.

Group general counsel Andrew Whittaker joined the group in May from the Financial Services Association. He is responsible for the strategy and direction of the bank’s 370-strong legal team, which is based in the UK and abroad. He is sharing his role with full-time deputy Kate Cheetham and works 0.6 of a full-time contract, with hours rising or falling depending on workload.

Chairman of Lloyds Sir Win Bischoff recently launched the Agile Future Forum with 21 other large UK businesses after deputy prime minister Nick Clegg asked him to establish a group to look at workforce agility. It followed a 2011 Lloyds bank-wide flexible working initiative, under which around a third of employees now work flexibly.

Whittaker said the job share works as their skills complement each other. “With Kate’s experience in commercial and her extensive knowledge of the group, my regulatory background and external perspective having joined from another organisation, it is proving to be a very complementary partnership.”

Cheetham added: “Although we have only started working together recently, we think it is already proving to be the right approach. The group as a whole is very supportive of flexible working – it doesn’t just make life easier for our colleagues, it is proving to be good for the business too.”

Karen Mattison MBE is the co-founder of the Timewise Foundation, a social business that helps people to find the flexibility they need in their careers, without losing value in the workplace. She said: “Our approach to work in the UK is undergoing an about-shift. More than 8 million people now work part time or flexibly, accounting for a quarter of our entire working population. In spite of this, the stigma that ‘part time’ can only ever suit junior level roles, with little responsibility still holds. It is fantastic to see employers talking openly about senior level flexible hires and working arrangements: this is the way to crack that ceiling.”