While a lot of museum wellbeing work focuses on audiences and communities, it shouldn’t overlook one of the sector’s strongest assets – staff and volunteers.
Recent research suggests the sector’s workforce is under great strain, particularly from budget cuts, but also wider societal pressures.
Wellbeing may not be a panacea for all the challenges the sector faces, but evidence suggests it could promote a healthier and more resilient outlook among staff and volunteers.
In 2017, the Irish state broadcaster RTE obtained an internal report on staff wellbeing from the National Museum of Ireland that suggested 40% of staff were at risk of developing anxiety or depression, with one in five often or even more frequently subjected to bullying.
The previous year, Arts Council England highlighted the challenges of building teams that are resilient and flexible enough to cope with today’s fast-changing environment. In its report Character Matters: Attitudes, Behaviours and Skills in the UK Museum Workforce, researchers found employees criticised “low rates of co-operation and poor handling of change management and innovation”.
In this context, wellbeing provides employers with a wider sense of their team’s morale than the basic requirements of health and safety legislation.
“It is the moral thing to do: supporting your employees’ wellbeing often means treating them with respect and understanding; providing additional support or guidance; and implementing specific interventions,” says Tamsin Russell, the Museums Association’s professional development officer.
The Character Matters report recommends looking beyond the sector for inspiration and devoting time and resources to continuing professional development to improve specific skills as well as personal qualities, including health and wellbeing.
Such opportunities are not necessarily expensive, as shown by media agency MediaCom, which instigated a ban on emails after 7pm to restore a healthy work/life balance.
Meanwhile, the education sector has directly inspired @museum5aday, set up by Kate Topping, the education officer at Haslemere Museum, to suggest via social media ways heritage workers can look after themselves so they can better support their colleagues.
The initiative is based on #teacher5aday.
The concept behind both campaigns is to promote five achievable steps to better health:
1. Connect
2. Learn
3. Volunteer
4. Notice
5. Exercise
“In the stressful world of teaching this is particularly relevant,” Topping says. “Museum staff are also working under increasing pressure as budgets are cut and we are expected to do more with less. Workers are also often isolated in their individual departments.”
Topping receives support from her peers in the Learning Liaison Forum, a group for heritage educators in Surrey and Sussex, which in turn has received funding from the South East Museums Development Programme to run workshops and collate an advice booklet.
“As a profession we are fully aware of how heritage can benefit people’s wellbeing,” Topping says. “But we are not aware of our own wellbeing. #Museum5aday gives us valid reasons to make sure we stop to take time out for ourselves. Those few minutes to walk away from our desks and actually notice something, to connect with a colleague or learn a new skill not only benefits us, but also our organisations.”
Wellbeing schemes can also bring in new workers to the sector. In Greater Manchester, one scheme has focused on volunteers that experience social and economic isolation.
From 2013 to 2016, 10 venues across the region participated in Inspiring Futures: Volunteering for Wellbeing, which targeted people in long-term unemployment or facing low-level mental health challenges, as well as military veterans.
The initiative offered them bespoke training in heritage knowledge, customer and interpersonal skills, augmented by ongoing peer support.
Research assessing its outcomes suggests wider lessons. The Inspiring Futures’ team found that half of participants carried on volunteering after the project closed, while others moved into paid work or found opportunities elsewhere.
Danielle Garcia, the project coordinator at Imperial War Museum North in Salford, a lead partner for the Inspiring Futures scheme alongside Manchester Museum, says case was taken to ensure volunteers felt part of the wider team.
“For each of the 10 training sessions, we had a different member of staff explain their role and motivation, and how volunteers can support them,” she says. “For example, someone from marketing came in to explain how we present exhibitions.”
The Inspiring Futures venues continue to work together in the cultural volunteer coordinators forum. This maintains peer support, shares roles and refers users to suitable programmes across the network. A sports-mad participant might be encouraged to volunteer at the National Football Museum in Manchester, for example.
A good practice guide, Volunteering for Wellbeing, offers more advice on setting up similar programmes.
Recent research suggests the sector’s workforce is under great strain, particularly from budget cuts, but also wider societal pressures.
Wellbeing may not be a panacea for all the challenges the sector faces, but evidence suggests it could promote a healthier and more resilient outlook among staff and volunteers.
In 2017, the Irish state broadcaster RTE obtained an internal report on staff wellbeing from the National Museum of Ireland that suggested 40% of staff were at risk of developing anxiety or depression, with one in five often or even more frequently subjected to bullying.
The previous year, Arts Council England highlighted the challenges of building teams that are resilient and flexible enough to cope with today’s fast-changing environment. In its report Character Matters: Attitudes, Behaviours and Skills in the UK Museum Workforce, researchers found employees criticised “low rates of co-operation and poor handling of change management and innovation”.
In this context, wellbeing provides employers with a wider sense of their team’s morale than the basic requirements of health and safety legislation.
“It is the moral thing to do: supporting your employees’ wellbeing often means treating them with respect and understanding; providing additional support or guidance; and implementing specific interventions,” says Tamsin Russell, the Museums Association’s professional development officer.
The Character Matters report recommends looking beyond the sector for inspiration and devoting time and resources to continuing professional development to improve specific skills as well as personal qualities, including health and wellbeing.
Such opportunities are not necessarily expensive, as shown by media agency MediaCom, which instigated a ban on emails after 7pm to restore a healthy work/life balance.
Meanwhile, the education sector has directly inspired @museum5aday, set up by Kate Topping, the education officer at Haslemere Museum, to suggest via social media ways heritage workers can look after themselves so they can better support their colleagues.
The initiative is based on #teacher5aday.
The concept behind both campaigns is to promote five achievable steps to better health:
1. Connect
2. Learn
3. Volunteer
4. Notice
5. Exercise
“In the stressful world of teaching this is particularly relevant,” Topping says. “Museum staff are also working under increasing pressure as budgets are cut and we are expected to do more with less. Workers are also often isolated in their individual departments.”
Topping receives support from her peers in the Learning Liaison Forum, a group for heritage educators in Surrey and Sussex, which in turn has received funding from the South East Museums Development Programme to run workshops and collate an advice booklet.
“As a profession we are fully aware of how heritage can benefit people’s wellbeing,” Topping says. “But we are not aware of our own wellbeing. #Museum5aday gives us valid reasons to make sure we stop to take time out for ourselves. Those few minutes to walk away from our desks and actually notice something, to connect with a colleague or learn a new skill not only benefits us, but also our organisations.”
Wellbeing schemes can also bring in new workers to the sector. In Greater Manchester, one scheme has focused on volunteers that experience social and economic isolation.
From 2013 to 2016, 10 venues across the region participated in Inspiring Futures: Volunteering for Wellbeing, which targeted people in long-term unemployment or facing low-level mental health challenges, as well as military veterans.
The initiative offered them bespoke training in heritage knowledge, customer and interpersonal skills, augmented by ongoing peer support.
Research assessing its outcomes suggests wider lessons. The Inspiring Futures’ team found that half of participants carried on volunteering after the project closed, while others moved into paid work or found opportunities elsewhere.
Danielle Garcia, the project coordinator at Imperial War Museum North in Salford, a lead partner for the Inspiring Futures scheme alongside Manchester Museum, says case was taken to ensure volunteers felt part of the wider team.
“For each of the 10 training sessions, we had a different member of staff explain their role and motivation, and how volunteers can support them,” she says. “For example, someone from marketing came in to explain how we present exhibitions.”
The Inspiring Futures venues continue to work together in the cultural volunteer coordinators forum. This maintains peer support, shares roles and refers users to suitable programmes across the network. A sports-mad participant might be encouraged to volunteer at the National Football Museum in Manchester, for example.
A good practice guide, Volunteering for Wellbeing, offers more advice on setting up similar programmes.
