Museum compass 26.
New employee at the museum
Edited by Mária Káldy
The issue is downloadable here.
Intorduction
“Everyone is an explorer.
How could you possibly live your life
looking at a door and not open it?”
(Robert Duane Ballard)
When I decided that I wanted to work in a museum and set myself the goal, I knew as much about the museum as a regular museum visitor interested in the subject. When I first stepped through the gate of my new workplace, the museum, a completely new world opened up to me. Fields of work, activities, tasks formerly unknown, new people, rules, concepts, expressions. It took time, curiosity, interest, personal experience, learning, and a lot of help and encouragement from my colleagues and my bosses to slowly gain the knowledge needed to know the most complex cultural institution, the MUSEUM.
As a leader, I considered it important even essential to personally “initiate” the new staff, to give them a full and complete insight into their chosen workplace, which included the institution’s history, organisation, achievements, recognitions, goals, mission, activities as well as the ways, forms and rules of internal communication and the external relations of the institution. As an indispensable part of the initiation, I found it important as a leader to introduce newcomers and old colleagues to each other, providing the initial help for working together and for future cooperation. It was important for new colleagues to get to know the museum’s former and current staff members who have played a key role in the life of the museum and who had an exemplary track record, whether as leaders or subordinates. The goal is to hand over the baton while maintaining continuity, to integrate new employees as quickly as possible, and to help them gain the confidence needed to work effectively. I believe that one can become a committed, professional practitioner if the first positive impressions are followed by helpful mentoring, support, encouragement, continuous feedback. feedback.
This publication consists of six large units. The first five chapters are for new employees and for those who have recently become new employees of a museum and have not had the opportunity to become more familiar with their workplace, but it can be interesting for anyone who wants to refresh their knowledge of the colourful world of museums. In this volume, we have collected all the knowledge about the museum which can help those colleagues to get to know their chosen workplace. The emphasis is on laying the foundation, since it is only possible for anyone to gain the knowledge they need and to appreciate their place in a museum community if they get to know the general characteristics of the museum, its place in the community and its unique features as well. The sixth chapter of this work addresses those who are responsible for developing and maintaining the museum’s human resources. Human resources management has become more important in advanced economies in the world, and human resources managers are now playing a key role in larger museums. In Hungary, however, most museums do not employ such specialists, so this work aims to help all those tasked with selecting and mentoring new employees and supporting their integration into the organisation, without specific HR qualifications. We wish our readers a wonderful time in the wonderful world of museums!
Mária Káldy
senior museum consultant