The Latest Update In Orchestra Workplace Satisfaction: Summer 2019

It has been just over six months since the last time we examined the value of improving orchestra workplace satisfaction which means it is high time to see where things are related to your efforts on increasing the quantity and frequency of reviews at GlassDoor.com from arts administrators and staffers about their respective orchestra employers.

This article is part of an ongoing special series that tracks workplace satisfaction. We publish two installments per year. If you are interested in helping out by collecting data and identifying organizations that should be added to the list, let me know (I would be grateful for the assistance!).

A Few Highlights

Since January 2019:

• There were 25 new reviews across eight organizations.
• The average score remained the same from the last review: a 3.4 out of 5.0, which works out to a 68 percent satisfaction rate (which was identical to opera workplace satisfaction levels).
• The Pittsburgh Symphony saw a large uptick in the number of reviews, going from three to 11. Consequently, the new reviews dropped their score from 3.6 to 2.7.

Summer 2019 Results

Looking Ahead

Your efforts to improve workplace satisfaction transparency continue to bear fruit; as such, it is more important than ever to continue in this direction. The more you contribute, the better positioned you’ll be at implementing positive change by making sure more opera managers are aware that something like GlassDoor.com exists and can be used by both current and former employees.

Consequently, be sure you reach out and encourage your colleagues to leave reviews for their respective employers; it will only help accelerate progress.

Why This Matters

Regular readers know that the topic of Workplace Satisfaction is one of the more popular here at Adaptistration and even though it continues to remain firmly swept under the rug for the field as a whole, that doesn’t mean you can’t do something about it.

To that end, GlassDoor.com serves as a useful benchmark for gauging current and previous employee satisfaction and after a bit of research, it turns out there are enough orchestra employers listed in their database to produce a worthwhile overview.

Granted, there are certainly critics of services like GlassDoor.com, which allow members to post review content anonymously, but some Google sleuthing turns up more favorable reviews than not.

Correction: the original version of this article had the Jacksonville Symphony linked to a Glass door page for the Jackson Symphony (different group). Ironcily, both groups have the same number of reviews and the average review score for Jackson is 3.7 and Jacksonville is 3.8. As such, the change didn’t impact the overall averages but the Jacksonville data has now been updated with the correct info.