Findings, Section 1: Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is a living embodiment of an organization’s norms, values, and day-to-day environment. For art museums, the workplace is both a private and public setting—an active exchange of visitors and the many workers who make cultural experiences possible. The workplace culture of any art museum permeates throughout this ongoing exchange, observable to audiences and experienced most profoundly by workers themselves. In examining art museums as workplaces and not solely as public spaces, the dynamics of their cultures can be better understood and improved upon for the betterment of workers and visitors alike.

The nature of work—where, when, how, and why we work—has been irrevocably altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Established ways of working, including the pre-pandemic norms of fully in-person work and unsustainable workloads, have been put into question, and a collective call for cultures of care has taken root. From experiments with hybrid work and desires to diversify the field to rising public accountability and museum protest movements, art museum workplaces are in a critical era of transition.

Hybrid privileges are largely a full-time benefit, with the majority of part-time workers (67%) required to work in person only (see fig. 6).

Hybrid work is a privilege that increases linearly with seniority (see fig. 7). The more senior the worker, the more hybrid flexibility is likely. Inversely, the more junior the worker, the more likely they are to be required to work in person only.

Workers’ ability to work from home also depends on their function within the museum’s day-to-day operations. Departments that are most tied to the physical museum experience are required to be onsite at higher rates, such as building operations and public engagement (see fig. 8). Departments such as collections, administration, and communications, which are somewhat less tethered to the physical site, require fewer fully onsite workers.

When it comes to Return-to-Work, there is no established industry standard. Art museums across the country are exploring hybrid work in its many forms. The level of hybrid flexibility—how many and which days of the week a worker is required to be onsite—differs from museum to museum. The most popular hybrid work structure is a collaborative approach, where the museum dictates the number of onsite days and the worker chooses which days to work in person each week (see fig. 9). The second most common structure is a worker-led model, wherein the worker chooses when and how often they work onsite. The least common arrangement is also the most restrictive for workers, where the museum fully dictates when and how often workers should be onsite.

Most hybrid workers enjoy some control over which days they work onsite. And most art museum workers are satisfied overall with the level of control over their workplace flexibility (see fig. 10).

When it comes to the internal culture of art museums, most workers (60%, see fig. 12) believe that diversity and difference are celebrated in their workplaces. However, race and ethnicity play a vital role in workers’ experience of their workplaces and, thus, influence perceptions of how inclusive workplaces feel. When compared to the average art museum worker, white workers are more likely to feel that diversity and difference are celebrated by their workplaces, while Black workers are significantly less likely to hold that belief.

For many art museum workers, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a practice that lives within and beyond the culture of the museum. Most workers feel a sense of personal responsibility for carrying out DEI principles, with 68% reporting that they personally incorporate DEI into their work (see fig. 13). Museum workers largely contribute to DEI efforts through these personal, albeit still vital pathways, rather than formal museum-wide initiatives. Believing that one incorporates DEI principles into one’s work increases linearly with seniority, with the vast majority of executives (91%) believing that DEI is embedded in their work and only a slight majority of entry-level workers (54%) believing that they personally incorporate such principles.

Similar to the belief that one personally incorporates DEI principles into their work, the likelihood that a worker is serving on a DEI committee also increases linearly with seniority (see fig. 14). Workers currently serving on DEI committees are most likely to be executive- and director-level workers, and many of these leaders are firsttime DEI committee members. 38% of art museum executives are currently serving on DEI committees, only 11% having previously served. 25% of director-level workers are currently serving on DEI committees, where similarly only 11% have previously served. Participation in DEI committees is lowest among entry-level workers, though they are currently participating at greater rates than in years prior.

Participation in formal DEI efforts has broadened in recent years, with 18% of museum workers reporting that they currently serve on a DEI committee, compared to 11% previously (see fig. 15). Identity is a driving force for current participation in these committees. A worker’s race, gender, disability status, and sexual orientation impacts their participation rates, with multiracial, female, and disabled workers serving at higher rates than other art museum workers. DEI committees are largely staffed by women, which is no surprise given that the overall workforce is predominantly women. Even still, controlling for worker population size, women serve on DEI committees at higher rates than men, at 19% and 13%, respectively.

Entry-level workers have the lowest rates of participation in DEI efforts in art museums (see fig. 16). For these young and diverse workers, lack of awareness about this work is an invisible barrier for their participation. One in four entry-level workers don’t know how to get involved in their museums’ formal DEI work.

Not surprisingly, museum executives have the greatest awareness of the measurement and tracking of diversity within their institutions. Most executives report that their museums are tracking the racial and gender composition of their staff and board, and the majority (63%) also track the diversity of artists in their collection (see fig. 17). A minority of museum executives (27%) report tracking the diversity of museum volunteers.