Imagine the plight of a woman I'll call Jennifer. She's a capable and well-paid exec who's worked for the same company for the past eight years - with bosses who highly value her as an employee.

Here's the conflict. Jennifer has decided she can no longer sacrifice her growing family at the cost of a 50-hour workweek. She loves her career, but would love to put in about half the time. Her company can't afford to lose her, but can't afford to lose half her hours, either.

Enter a woman I'll call Deb. She's reentering the workforce after an extended maternity leave, with strong skills and a strong desire to work part-time. Her story is ditto that of Jennifer's: loves her career path, loves her family, wants time for both.

Now, a possible solution: job-sharing. Jennifer's company hires Deb; they take one job and split the hours, the pay and the benefits. Productivity remains high, everybody's happy, everybody wins.

Sound too good to be true?

Not necessarily. As companies face receding waters in the pool of qualified employees and candidates, more are looking to nontraditional ways to keep good talent. Job-sharing is one of the alternatives that's gaining greater acceptance among employers and employees alike.

The arrangement typically involves two, or sometimes more, people sharing the responsibility, pay and benefits of one full-time job. The employer still pays for one job, but gets the benefit of two brains (and, usually, far happier employees).

For the employees, pay and benefits are shared in proportion to the hours each works. Job-sharers may work split days, split weeks or alternate weeks. Often, at least a limited amount of hours are shared in the office each week to allow for effective transitions and collaboration.

Certainly there are some logistics to consider from a human resources and management perspective in getting a job-sharing arrangement up-and-running effectively. But the efforts may well be worth it.

Kelly Watson, founder and president of Career Partners, a firm that specializes in matching and coaching female execs who want to share career responsibilities, noted, "While it might entail more paperwork to process in h.r. [human resources], some additional meetings and some extra evaluation time, finding the skill and talent to fill a key executive position in your organization may make the extra work highly worth it. . . . Joint leadership also promotes a reduction in absentee downtime and cultivates better leaders who are happier, more balanced and highly effective."

Indeed, offering job-sharing can be an invaluable way for companies to retain staff who can no longer work full-time and may otherwise leave.

For companies who value the idea of executive job-sharing but are leery of actually doing it, organizations such as Watson's can handle everything from screening to coaching to assisting with performance reviews.

"We do all of this so companies can focus on their business and reap the benefits of co-leadership without any of the downside," Watson said.

Are you the job-sharing type?

It isn't the ticket for just anyone. If you're the proprietary type - if you get tense at the idea of someone else watering your desk plant, much less sharing important job responsibilities - job-sharing isn't for you. You might consider a different alternative, such as flex-time.

On the other hand, if you enjoy collaborating with others, value teamwork and warm to the idea of two brains are better than one, job-sharing is worth checking into.

It means you'll need to be willing to share everything: an office, a phone, ideas, approaches, philosophies, contacts, successes, failures - and, of course, a paycheck. But the upside is that you'll still have the career you love and time for the family you love.

For initial answers to these and other questions, check out the Working Options Web site, headed by nationally recognized work options adviser Pat Katepoo.

Go to workoptions.com/articles.htm and scroll down to Job Sharing Strategies and Tips. You'll find answers to many of your questions. If you're really serious, the site provides a sample proposal you can download for a small fee.