Findings: Workplace Culture

Art museum workers view their workplaces equally or more positively than they did two years ago, with every dimension of workplace culture either remaining nearly the same or improving since 2023. There are four dimensions where art museums are performing especially well, highlighting two key strengths within the field: (1) widespread appreciation for the meaningful nature of art museum work, and (2) strong satisfaction with workplace relations and collegial connections. 

However, burnout in the art museum sector remains substantial and persistent, impacting 43% of the workforce. While this is an improvement from 2023 (when 52% reported it), burnout remains a critical concern because it affects the entire workplace experience. The World Health Organization defines burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” and it is now included in the International Classification of Diseases as an occupational phenomenon.¹²

The data shows significant generational differences in museum burnout, with Millennial workers feeling almost twice as burned out as their Baby Boomer colleagues (see fig. 2). This tracks with studies of intergenerational workers across other sectors and is likely related to the fact that Millennials are increasingly becoming the “sandwich generation,” feeling the squeeze between caring for children and/or aging parents while balancing the demands of work.¹³

Relatedly, about one third of workers (32%) believe their art museum workplace is having a negative impact on their physical and mental health. While this reflects an improvement since the last report (it was 40% in 2023), the progress has not been felt equally by all workers. Those who have recently experienced discrimination or harassment continue to suffer nearly the same level of adverse health impacts from their art museum workplaces as they did two years ago. Not surprisingly, workers who have experienced discrimination or harassment view their workplaces much more negatively across almost all dimensions.

Still, more than half of art museum workers (55%) would recommend their workplaces to friends and family, up 3% from 2023. This varies across groups: white workers are marginally more likely to recommend their workplaces compared with those of other racial groups. A starker contrast emerges among union members, who are significantly less likely to recommend their workplaces, as are those who have had recent experiences of discrimination or harassment. 

Smaller museums consistently outperform their larger counterparts across nearly every dimension of workplace culture, challenging assumptions about the advantages of scale and resources. After finding a correlation in the data between institutions’ annual operating budgets and worker satisfaction, we conducted further analysis to compare small museums (annual budget under $5 million), mid-sized museums ($5–$15 million), and large museums (more than $15 million).¹⁴ Our analysis of art museums by budget size revealed that small museums are outperforming larger institutions on almost every metric of worker well-being. This trend is mirrored in the broader US workforce beyond museums, as noted in a 2023 report by BambooHR: “Those at companies with fewer than 25 employees reported happiness scores that were on average around 50% higher than workers at firms with 151 to 300 employees.”¹⁵

The analysis of experiences of workers by size of museum reveals a crucial insight: workers at smaller museums tend to be paid less but experience higher levels of satisfaction with their workplaces (which we explore in more detail in the Pay and Promotions section). Despite offering lower salaries and fewer advancement opportunities on average, smaller museums offer workplace experiences that their staff find more satisfying and fulfilling than those provided by their larger and better-funded peers.  

A significantly higher proportion of workers in small museums (48%) believe that they have a voice in decision-making compared to those in large museums (30%), that people in their organizations are held accountable for discrimination and harassment (56% vs. 38%), and that diversity and difference are celebrated in their museum (79% vs. 66%). Conversely, a higher proportion of workers in large museums (26%) feel that mistakes are held against them compared to small museums (14%). The data also reveals how much these workplace culture dynamics are impacting workers’ health and their likelihood of recommending their workplaces to others. In small museums, fewer workers feel their workplaces are negatively affecting their health (23% vs. 36%) and a notably higher proportion say they would recommend their workplace to friends and family compared to large museums (65% vs. 51%).

When analyzing the workplace dynamics of small, mid-sized, and large museums all together, there are several cases where we find a clear and consistent pattern by budget size (see fig. 6). Two noteworthy examples are in the percentage of workers who believe they can learn and grow in their organizations (80% in small, 77% in mid-sized, 71% in large museums), and who report having a sense of purpose and dignity in their work (81% vs. 76% and 70%).

Another way to assess the health of a museum’s workplace is the employee turnover rate among new hires, which we call churn rate. To measure this, we calculated the number of permanent, full-time workers hired within the past two years who are still employed by their institution. The average churn rate for our Partner Museums is 27%, meaning that, on average, more than a quarter of workers hired within the past two years have already left their institutions. 

Half of the art museums in our study had churn rates above 25%, meaning that more than 25% of the recently hired workforce left within the past two years; we classified these organizations as “high-churn” museums. The half who fell below 25% were classified as “low-churn” museums. 

A quarter of the museums in our study had churn rates above 40%. This level of recent-hire turnover may have serious implications for the experiences of workers who stay and for the overall health of the museum. Turnover incurs direct costs like recruitment and training as well as indirect costs such as reduced productivity, loss of knowledge, and negative impacts on morale and customer service.¹⁶

Low-churn museums—where less than 25% of the recently hired workforce left within two years—are predominantly mid-sized institutions, whereas high-churn museums are mostly large institutions. 

A worker’s position level in an art museum is connected to their beliefs about who influences institutional decision-making, which, in turn, relates to how they feel about the cultures of their workplaces. The gap between executive and non-executive perspectives is illustrative of a persistent divide between museum staff and the executives who lead them.¹⁷ It may also help clarify other trends in the data that we examine throughout this report, including increasing unionization in the field, a lack of alignment on the existence of workplace policies, and a reluctance to report complaints to HR.

As part of their Culture of Trust study, social science research organization Knology identified components of trust and conducted a review of news stories about staff–leader disputes in children’s museums between 2018 and 2024.¹⁸ In their 2025 report, they found that:

Almost all of the 100 stories we analyzed included an assessment of leadership trustworthiness…. Most of these assessments were negative.… No component of leader trustworthiness was assessed more often than integrity — which has to do with perceptions of how fairly others apply their principles. For leaders, most integrity assessments were negative. Example statements from staff included claims that leadership “failed to uphold its own policies” around equity and inclusion, engaged in “censorship,” did not “understand that workers have rights,” or was “complicit in injustices” taking place in the wider world.

Thinking about trust and trustworthiness can help explain why museum leaders struggle to stay aligned with their workers even with policies in place specifically to support their workforce.¹⁹

In small art museums, workers are more likely to believe that leadership decisions are driven by their institution’s mission, vision, and/or values and the interests of their local communities. Conversely, workers at large museums are more likely to believe that it is the board’s and/or donors’ priorities that have the most significant impact on institutional decision-making. 

The art museum workforce remains overwhelmingly white at all position levels and across roles. The proportion of white workers in art museums²⁰ is significantly higher than in the nonprofit sector as a whole (67% vs. 51%).²¹ For reference, according to the US Census Bureau in 2025, white people (non-Hispanic, white only) make up 58% of the population.²²

There has been a slight increase of Asian (9% in 2025 vs. 8% in 2023), Black (9% vs. 8%), and Hispanic or Latine/x staff (13% vs. 12%) and a slight decrease of white staff (77% in 2025 from 78% in 2023) since 2023. Entry-level workers continue to be the most racially diverse cohort in art museums, comprising 31% people of color, an increase of 3% since 2023. Also consistent with MMF’s findings from 2023 is that the next highest proportion of racial and ethnic diversity is found at the executive level, comprising 28% people of color in 2025, a decrease of 1% since 2023. There has been a notable decrease in Black executives in the past two years (down 4% to 12%) and an increase in Hispanic or Latine/x executives (up 3% to 12%).

In addition to racial diversity, the entry-level cohort (over half of whom are Gen Z) also reflects the most diversity in terms of gender identity and sexual orientation, with 19% identifying as nonbinary and 50% identifying as LGBTQ+. These statistics mirror national generational shifts: Gen Z is far more likely to identify as nonbinary than other generations (7% vs. 2% of Millennials and less than 1% of Gen X or Baby Boomers).²³ Similarly, 28% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ+ compared to 16% of Millennials, 7% of Gen X, and 4% of Baby Boomers.²⁴ Looking specifically at Gen Z workers in art museums, they are significantly more likely to identify as nonbinary (24%) or LGBTQ+ (67%) than the Gen Z population in the US overall (7% and 28%, respectively). 

The percentage of workers who identify as having a disability has increased since 2023, with the largest proportion (55%) reporting a mental health disability specifically.²⁵ This is most pronounced at the entry level, where nearly two-thirds (66%) of workers with a disability report a mental health disability.

It is noteworthy to see an increase since 2023 in workers’ beliefs that diversity and difference are celebrated within their institutions. More than two-thirds (69%) of art museum workers believe that diversity and difference are celebrated in their museums, up from 60% in 2023. As previously mentioned, the data for this survey was collected from late 2024 until early 2025, prior to a number of legal and policy changes regarding DEAI implemented since the current presidential administration took office.

The vast majority (81%) of art museum directors say their board supports their museum’s DEAI efforts. Directors also report that their boards remain predominantly white (69%), which is slightly more than nonprofit boards overall (66%).²⁷ Importantly, the executive committees of art museum boards are even less racially diverse (75% white) than boards overall.²⁸ This means that the locus of power within art museum boards is held by an overwhelmingly white group.  

Undoubtedly, the recent surge in unionization in art museums is having a significant impact on workplace culture. In fact, many unions have cited workplace culture issues as a key motivation for organizing.²⁹ We also know that one primary goal of many unionizing workers is to have a greater voice in decisions that affect them.³⁰

MMF’s data shows that, across a majority of dimensions of workplace culture, a larger proportion of union members are dissatisfied than art museum workers overall, with gaps between the workers ranging from 2% up to 23%.³¹ Given how new many of these unions are in art museums (55% of art museum unions have been certified for fewer than five years)—especially organization-wide (or “wall-to-wall”) unions—it is too soon to determine the full impact that unions are having on museum workplaces as a whole. However, looking at this early data can help us understand the major issues concerning unionized workers, as well as the areas where union members are noting the most significant positive impacts on their workplace’s culture thus far. As Patrice Laroche notes in her 2017 article in Harvard Business Review: “Unions don’t seem to make workers less satisfied. Rather, workers who are likely to be dissatisfied—even after controlling for various aspects of their work—are more likely to join unions.”³²

The most significant gap in workplace culture sentiments between union members and art museum workers overall is in believing they do not have a voice in decision-making at their organization (65% of union members vs. 42% of workers overall).

However, union members are broadly positive about the impact of their union on various aspects of workplace culture. This may help to explain why museum workers are choosing to form or join a union in the first place, believing it is a tool to address the dissatisfaction they are experiencing in their workplaces.