A Cautionary Tale And A Bad PR Look In One Ugly Package

The 8/16/22 edition of the Buckeye Flame published an article by Ken Schneck that reports on a lawsuit filed against the Cleveland Orchestra (CO) and Business Administrators & Consultants Inc (BAC), CO’s contracted healthcare administrator, for discrimination after they refused to cover a necessary surgery. According to the plaintiff, Rem Wransky who works as a full stack developer for the orchestra, the organization denied her surgery because she is a trans woman. …

Read more

Hiring When Your Arts And Culture Organization Operates In A State That Outlaws Abortion

Last June, we started to examine the post Roe v. Wade operating environment and how orchestras that operate in states that criminalize reproductive health care practices will have to handle hiring. On one hand, states like Kansas that rejected proposed legislation that would have criminalized abortion avoid dealing with the aftermath. But the same isn’t true for groups in Indiana, where that state’s legislature passed one of the most restrictive bans …

Read more

Giving A Boost To #ShowTheSalary

During my July break, an engaging discussion took place at my LinkedIn wall about Arts Admin Jobs and whether or not it would require employers to include salary or hourly rate figures. Regular readers already know that I’m a large proponent of salary transparency and including compensation figures in job listings. But some voices advocated requiring employers to provide salary information and I agree with every one of the reasons listed …

Read more

Looking For Unicorns On A Donkey Budget

The unicorn employee: someone with all the skills across a multitude of platforms, isn’t limited by job titles, and efficiently completes tasks at an awe-inspiring pace. They are willing, and even prefer, to wear different hats, inspire colleagues, and never lose empathy. Unicorns can make the difference between surviving and thriving and perhaps unsurprisingly, they are hard to catch even when you have the right bait. And this is why it …

Read more

Advanced De-escalation: When You Can’t Avoid Controversial Topics

In a time when stakeholders are more on-edge than ever, it pays to brush up on basic de-escalation technics. To that end, I wanted to take a moment and point out something from Kelly Leonard, Executive Director of Learning and Applied Improvisation at Second City Works, who promotes a concept he calls “thank you, because…” H/T Holly Mulcahy for bringing this to my attention because if there was ever a time …

Read more