Emma King
What would you say are the benefits of working in a museum consultancy rather than in a museum?
For me the main benefit is being in control of my workload and my time. I’m a single parent and also have other caring responsibilities. Working freelance is the only way I can achieve any kind of work-life balance.
The other benefit is the ability to choose work that interests me. I have a range of skills and interests that are reflected in a diverse portfolio of freelance projects. I try to work with organisations whose values are compatible with my own and on projects where I feel my skills and expertise can make a genuine difference.
How has the impact of the pandemic influenced freelancing in the sector?
It’s made it harder to earn a living. The biggest challenge I’ve experienced as a result of the pandemic – and this feels ironic, given what I said about work-life balance – is managing my workload in the face of constantly changing deadlines and time delays.
Organisations have commissioned freelance work without necessarily having the capacity to manage or support it. This means I’ve often allocated time for projects that have then been delayed or not materialised at all. Periods of dead time are inevitably followed by overwork when all the rescheduled deadlines come at once. It causes anxiety and stress and impacts directly on freelancers’ incomes and family lives.
This issue relates directly to the level of overwhelm and overwork that many people employed in museums are experiencing. This was already a problem before Covid, but the pandemic has made things worse. I wrote about this after the MA conference last year, and I still think it’s a conversation the sector needs to have.
What skills do you think are the most important for freelancing or consultancy work?
I am endlessly curious and I’m always asking questions. I think that’s a necessary first step – wanting to go beyond the obvious surface issue and get to what’s underneath.
After that, it’s about listening. The temptation is to dive in and start solving problems, but you can’t do that until you’ve really listened and uncovered the complexity and nuances of what’s going on. This is not just about understanding a project or organisation, but about how the people in it are feeling and what kind of input or support they need.
The past two years have really brought home to me that how I approach a project on a human level is as important as the skills and experience I bring in. Alongside skills, certain personality traits are helpful for freelancing. Flexibility and tolerance for uncertainty are key.
It also helps if you can stay optimistic. If you can hold your nerve and stay positive when you’ve had your third rejection in a week and it feels like your livelihood is about to fall off a cliff then you stand a chance of thriving as a freelancer!
What else do you need to take into consideration when working in a museum consultancy rather than in a museum?
Working freelance requires a very different mindset to working as an employee. You need to think of yourself as a business. There are many aspects to this – refining and articulating what you can offer, researching the market, pitching for work, pricing work, keeping your skills and knowledge up to date and planning for the inevitable peaks and troughs – but they all involve thinking in a different way. And when you work for yourself you become your own finance manager, IT support, HR manager, marketing officer, data protection specialist, procurement department… the list goes on.
What should museums be doing to support the wellbeing of freelancers in the sector?
There are some fundamentals of good management that don’t happen as often as they should, despite the good practice guidance available. For example: write a clear brief with a realistic budget and timeframe. Have a fair and equitable procurement process that is proportionate to the work being advertised. Try to stick to agreed timescales for delivery, and renegotiate if this isn’t possible. Don’t expect freelancers to pick up additional work outside the scope of the agreed brief. Pay invoices on time. Keep communication open and give regular feedback. None of this is groundbreaking but whenever freelancers get together there will be many horror stories of bad practice, sometimes from high profile organisations.
Beyond the basics I would like to see more museums and sector support agencies consciously open up training and development opportunities to freelancers. We might work in a different way but our motivation is not much different from anyone else working in the sector. We all believe in the capacity for museums and collections to change people’s lives.