Staff Diversity
A little while ago over on the Museum Spaces Tumblr account I got a question. I like getting questions. They make me think in new and interesting ways.
You can read the question here and my response to it. A quick break down, though, is a deaf museum lover wants to know why museums, even ones with good and respected ASL programs prefer hiring ‘normal’ people for ASL jobs and wants to know some ideas about how to diversify hiring practices for staff.
Not having much experience with hiring from the institution’s side of things I turned to google which is helpful but ‘staff diversity’ in google’s search terms refers to racial and/or ethnic diversity. As important as that conversation is it is not the question at hand today.
Many of the talking points still stand:
- Check your recruiter’s unconscious biases
- Establish a clear organizational commitment to diverse hiring
- Make staff diversity part of every conversation
- Make staff diversity part of your message
Check your Unconscious Bias
It may be difficult to check an unconscious bias because it is unconscious. This might mean holding unusual interview processes such as written interviews or video interviews or, taking my questioner as an example, a working ASL interview. Many orchestras now hold auditions behind a screen and lay down a carpet to muffle footsteps because they found that unconscious biases came into play if interviewers could hear the clicking of high heels.
While I would love for everyone to have to wear heels that really doesn’t solve the problem.
Clear Organizational Commitment to Diverse Hiring
Establishing a clear organizational commitment to diverse hiring is doing more than just lip-service to diversity. It is intentionally hiring disabled people in roles where disability is important and also in roles where ability is unimportant.
This means that job titles such as ‘accessibility coordinator’ or jobs in exhibition design, education, and outreach should, by default, encourage physically and mentally disabled applicants. It should be explicit in the text of the job description.
For example
Job Title: Museum Educator (history museum)
Requirements:
BA/BSc in Museum Studies/Gallery Studies/Greek or Hellenistic History/similar degree or experience level (Required)
2 years experience in museum education (desired)
Must be able to stand/sit in the gallery for 4 hours (Required)
…
Intellectual, physical, or developmental disability an asset (desired)
This way it is explicate that the museum wants disabled applicants to help them create access in their public spaces.
However, staff diversity cannot stop in the gallery. It also must carry forward (backward?) into the offices, store rooms, and conservation laboratories of museums.
This is where the clear organizational commitment becomes necessary. Many UK jobs have a declaration of disability page on the application itself. Here is mine from the University of Leicester Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG). I am not currently eligible to work in the UK because I do not have an active visa. This means that even if I do meet all the other job requirements I might not get an interview. If the RCMG cannot support a visa application then I don’t meet all the requirements and fall outside of the scheme.
Every single job I have applied to in the UK have had this question. This is organizational commitment. It is more likely governmental commitment but having a similar guarantee on your museum’s applications would be an organizational commitment.
Make Staff Diversity Part of Every Conversation
I don’t really like the statement Make Diversity part of every conversation but I think that’s my literal thinking shining through. In a working environment you can’t always be talking about LGBTQIA+ or BAME or accessibility, etc. You have to also do your work!
What making diversity central to your ‘conversation’ can mean in museums, though is having co-curated (or out right curated) exhibitions, galleries, shows by the community you want to include. In a small art gallery that might mean having an exhibition of artwork by blind and visually impaired artists. For an aquarium it might mean inviting ID/DD individuals to learn how to train animals. This should culminate with the individuals hosting a show.
Museums cannot expect people that they seek out to volunteer their time and energy. Instead museums should find a way to fund both these projects and the people completing them. For the art gallery it may be a Juried Show. For other institutions this could mean contract positions, part time positions, or full time jobs.
It also means acknowledging and addressing the fact that I have only ever been in a single accessible museum store room. All the others were both too crowded for a chair user to enter and/or accessed only by stairs.
Make Staff Diversity part of Your Message
Every accredited museum has a Message. A publicly available sentence or three about the museum’s political, social, and community goals. They are normally something along the lines of
This Museum strives to promote education to our community, protect our collection for the future, and grow our collection ethically.
By adding, and actively sticking to fulfill, a statement about diversity into the message, a museum shows the world, their employees, and most importantly, potential applicants that they are committed to working with people, regardless of disability.
So what does it Mean?
Returning for a moment to ASL interpretation. As a hearing individual I can understand a potential employer hesitating when faced with a deaf applicant. I can only finger spell. How will I conduct the interview? Can I communicate with my employee? How will they communicate with me? What if I do something wrong?
Not a single one of those excuses is good enough not to, at the very least, interview a deaf person for any job that doesn’t require answering phones. For the hiring process I would have to make perhaps by employing an interpreter. Finger spelling is better than nothing but here is an opportunity for me to learn more. I couldn’t become fluent in time for an interview but I can learn a few phrases pertaining to the job and hiring process.
As for on-the-job communication: Many people actually prefer text-based communication such as emails. I have known many people who actually requested I email them instead of popping my head into their office for a quick question. And again, an employer who is not otherwise impaired, can learn ASL or any other sign language.
What if I do something wrong? This is a very important question. What do you do if you put your foot in it? The best thing to do, in my experience, is to offer your sincerest apologies and make a conscious effort to not do that again. There may be times when you really mess up so it is good to actively seek out information from disabled individuals on common issues and work to avoid them.
In Conclusion
We as an industry have to do better. No only do we have to work harder to include visibly disabled people in our ranks but we also have to work to acknowledge the invisibly disabled who might already be among us. I have told the story in the past about how I discovered my autism while interning at a museum. What I didn’t tell anyone is that most of my coworkers expected my boss to get a similar result on the AQ-10. I never asked if she took it but I hope she did.
Resources
Museologist Notes 5: How to Start Though this article focuses on creating access to guests, the principles are the same for creating space for disabled hiring.
UK’s Guaranteed Interview Scheme I find this a difficult document to parse through but basically it states that people who declare their disability and meet the requirements for the job must be given a fair interview.
What is Unconscious Bias? here is a video and short description explaining biases both conscious and unconscious from the University of California, San Fransisco
Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians by Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse. A free scholarly article dealing with unconscious bias.