I'm going to do my bit. Are you?

I feel like I have read a 1001 blogs and tweets about the how the comprehensive spending review is going to affect us as a sector. It seems that in general this is how people feel:

• We can’t stop the cuts now. We can try and make them work
• We should have been letting our audience know what we do for them
• We need to change how we engage with our audiences and partners
• Some people will not want to work as a team so we may have to makes some changes as individuals.

So where does this blog come into it? Well it’s really important that we use this time to create a culture of change in our organisation through its workforce. It’s our opportunity to make a difference in the small amount of time we have. It’s also an opportunity to show your employers the skills that you have that are not listed on your job description and how it is vital to utilise them for survival. It could be the start of something great……………

So here are some tips to get you started. Feel free to add your own in the comments

The museum workforce needs lots of different people with different skills working in it. It’s highly unlikely that we are going to be recruiting them in the near future. Why don’t we become them? Find yourself a mentor in another sector and shadow them. If your organisation can’t afford to send you on a fundraising course, find a charity that exceeds at fundraising and absorb their knowledge and use it in your own organisation for the benefit of the service. Embrace this opportunity to add new skills to your own CV. Share your skills with others. Become the museum professional of the future.

If you have worked with partners such as the NHS, the Prison Service or other directorates in the local authority such as Children’s Services, convince them to repay all the hard work you have done by shouting your virtues in the direction of the people that should know about it. We talk our partnerships up to our funders and to the rest of the sector, now is the time for them to realise what we do for them in real terms. Give them the material to work with. That is how a true partnership works. Both ways.

We are all going to feel uncertain about the stability of our jobs over the next year. It might feel like its better to keep your head down and keep quiet and hope that the axe does not fall. Start talking to the people who are making the decisions. We work with the audience we serve, we know what they value the most; tell the people who need to know constructively what parts of the service are integral to maintaining that connection with our audience, and more importantly how we attract new audiences. Be brave but be clear and have the evidence ready to back you up. Remember it can be lonely at the top; our superiors want to hear that we have changed peoples lives, helped them get a job or made them visitors feel special by simply talking to them. If we don’t say it they don’t know it!

Start planning to show people how we think (not know) that we affect lives. See if they agree. Listen to them even if they don’t think we have done anything good for them, chances are if they don’t feel the benefit there isn’t one. It obvious the systems we are using now don’t work, don’t be afraid to scrap methods that don’t work just because it’s ‘the way we do it’. Evaluation is worthless if you don’t act on it. Make this planning the core of what you do as a service and that everyone in your organisation has a voice. It is everyone’s responsibility to make sure we meet the needs of our existing and future audiences.

I’m going to do my bit. Are you?

Day 1 of the MA Conference: An accreditation for staff?

Having rested from the Museums Association Conference, I feel ready to share my thoughts with you on it. I am going to take it day by day………..

Monday

I spent all of Monday feeling disappointed. It being my first time at conference I felt like the next three days were going to invigorate and motivate me. Well not on Monday anyway. I was really looking forward to the Dr Frankenstein’s guide to building the museum professional of the future but for me it just did not hit the spot. We spent time working in groups coming up with character traits and skills that the museum professional of the future would need to work in a sector that is changing. Then we heard from Tony Butler and Keith Merrin, directors of independent Museums that are doing great things around social entrepreneurship. Then came the questions, and this is where the session should have started.

We all know that the sector is changing. We know that museums now need to have successful corporate and community partnerships that meet the need of the expanding museum audience. We also know that we need people with expertise in these areas to work with us. At least I think everyone in that room knew this judging by the long list of skills and characteristics that was churned out.

What we really needed to know was how we recruit people with these skills? How we train our current staff to take on these new challenges? How do we get them through the benchmark entry requirements on local authority job specifications? Why should they want to come and work with us? What with the low pay, oversubscribed job opportunities and current cuts. I think the people in that room could have come up with some great answers, instead of covering old ground.

There needs to be some standards set that will support a museum in wanting to develop its workforce. The two most important things that make a museum successful is its collections and its staff. If we can provide standards for maintaining, developing and acquiring collections then we should certainly do the same for our staff.

Realistically we are only going to achieve a new dynamic in the museum workforce by getting the right people in the right room and get them making some actual decisions. That means the Museums Association, Universities, MLA and Local Authority decision makers. Take note of museums that have took on this challenge and are blooming because of it.