We have a job-sharing arrangement where two part-time working mothers split our Office Manager seat. They have a seamless handover, but our EOS Implementer says we can only have one name in a seat. How do we document this on our Accountability Chart without ruining a highly successful, flexible staffing model?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

EOS is uncompromising on the rule of one name per seat because split accountability is zero accountability. If two people are responsible for a single seat, they will inevitably point fingers when something goes wrong. However, a job-sharing arrangement for an administrative role like an Office Manager can work beautifully if you structure it correctly on your Accountability Chart.

You cannot simply put two names in the Office Manager box. Instead, you must create two distinct seats on the chart. For example, you can create Office Manager AM and Office Manager PM, or Office Manager Front Half and Office Manager Back Half of the week. Each of these seats must have its own box on the chart.

Even though the five core roles for these two seats will be identical, they are technically two separate positions because they cover different hours. Each person must individually GWC their specific seat. Most importantly, you must assign clear, separate measurables to each seat. If the phone is not answered, or if the mail is not processed, it must be instantly clear which of the two seats was active at that moment.

You must also define a transition role for both seats. This means one of their five core roles must be the handoff communication. They must be accountable for leaving a detailed daily transition log for the other. By splitting the seat into two distinct boxes with clear boundaries, you preserve your flexible staffing model while maintaining total accountability.