Employer labor best practices and resources

28 February 2025 – Bonnie McDonald

advocacy, employment, labor, historic preservation, labor task force

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a 2025 History@Work series authored by members of the NCPH Labor Task Force in response to our Special Open Call on “#Advocacy in the Field”. You can read each post as it’s published throughout the year under H@W‘s #Advocacy tag.

Public history employers face critical labor decisions to sustain the field’s future. Without responsive, collaborative, and proportional change by employers, a labor crisis is impending. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of history jobs is projected to grow in the future. But despite the anticipated need, there may not be enough public historians to fill these positions. According to a 2017 career survey, there is apprehension amongst public history workers about future employment opportunities in the field. Respondents commented on low wages, long hours, and lack of advancement opportunities in the profession, as well as the weight of student loan debt they acquired to meet hiring requirements. A 2022 study adds cause for concern, finding that museum staff are more dissatisfied with their jobs than the average U.S. worker and two-thirds of art museum workers report thinking of leaving their job.

In the center of the photo is an envelope with the words, “Letter of Resignation,” written on the top in black pen and sitting on the top of a wooden desk. The black pen is sitting on the desk next to the right of the envelope. At the top right of the frame is a small succulent plant in a white square flower pot. At the top left of the frame is a portion of a laptop keyboard.

Letter of Resignation on Desk, Image Credit: CIPHR Connect, CC BY 2.0.

The inadequate response from employers is prompting employee activism. Cultural workers are acting collectively to demand equity-based institutional transformation, transparency, and accountability. La Tanya S. Autry and Mike Murawski created Museums are Not Neutral in 2017 to resource museum workers advocating for equity-based institutional transformation. In 2022, workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art went on a 19-day strike to secure fair compensation and working conditions. New York’s Hispanic Society Museum & Library workers went on an eight-week strike in 2023. In January 2025, recently unionized workers at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History rallied against alleged retaliation and the continued lack of a labor contract. Employees and labor unions have called out cultural institutions in Buffalo, Chicago, Maryland, Seattle, and Tacoma for union busting, further eroding trust in institutions and their leaders.

Understanding why public historians leave their positions is critical for employers to develop a response. Cultural workers report leaving their jobs for a variety of reasons, including being underpaid, lack of flexible work environments, antiquated benefits, lax safety policies and protocols, overwhelming workloads and lack of professional development and support. Fifty percent of nonprofit workers are experiencing burnout. Additional reasons employees may leave their jobs, according to former nonprofit director Vu Lee in his blog Nonprofit AF, include lack of agency to manage one’s own programs, insufficient resources and tools, few promotional and leadership opportunities, and inability to participate in decision making. Yet the challenges and demands of managing institutions, relationships, and the expectations of employees, board members, donors, and attendees, can make cultivating a transparent, people-forward culture feel unattainable for employers.

Person sitting at a wooden desk in front of a laptop computer with their head in both hands. There is a cup of coffee, a plant, pieces of paper and pens on the desk. There is a hand reaching in to the frame from the left holding a cell phone and a hand reaching in from the right with a spiral notebook.

Overworked at Work, Image credit: CIPHR Connect, CC BY 2.0.

Public history employers must pay attention and respond to their staff’s needs and wants or risk losing talented and passionate workers. The National Council on Public History (NCPH) Labor Task Force (LTF) has resources to help employers navigate this dynamic employment landscape. Drawing on a significant number of interviews with nonprofit, government, academic, and private employers, the NCPH Labor Task Force is defining the problem and providing relevant solutions. As an LTF member, I offered to assemble these resources as an employer working on labor equity. I lead Landmarks Illinois, a statewide historic preservation nonprofit organization. Preservation, a facet of public history, is facing its own relevancy crisis. In 2019, I launched the Relevancy Project to identify preservation’s opportunities, tap our field’s collective wisdom, and inspire individual and organizational-level actions that will move preservation towards relevance. Between August 2019 and February 2021, I interviewed 130 people both inside and adjacent to the preservation field about common concerns, best practices, and innovations. Eight common opportunity areas emerged from these many conversations. Changing labor practices was often identified as a key opportunity to make the field more accessible and equitable. In November 2023, Landmarks Illinois published my free digital book, The Relevancy Guidebook: How We Can Transform the Future of Preservation, a compilation of the project’s interviews, research, and resources in an easy-to-reference document to inform and inspire actions to enhance preservation’s relevance. Guidebook essays “Preservation as Health,” and “Job Creation and Historic Preservation” explore critical labor practices that need to change and include resources, several included in the NCPH Employer Resource List.

A group of people standing in a circle are holding puzzle pieces in their hand. The camera is positioned on the ground looking up into the circle created by the group’s hands.

Colaboración, Image credit: No dice, CC BY-SA 4.0

Public historians and cultural workers are demanding courageous leadership that includes all employees in decision-making and treats everyone within an organization fairly, with dignity, and respect. Workers see this as an ethical, as well as institutional, imperative. Despite being valid and worthwhile, employers may need additional support from and collaboration with their staff to drive change at the board level and with external partners. However, once implemented, the rewards of a people-centric workplace culture are inspiring, including improved morale and increased worker tenure, which can amplify your organization’s impact.

~Bonnie McDonald is a national voice for evolving the preservation practice to focus on people and address urgent concerns like climate change, affordable housing access and community health and wellness. McDonald is President & CEO of Landmarks Illinois and author of The Relevancy Guidebook: How We Can Transform the Future of Preservation (2023). She is a National Council on Public History Labor Task Force member.

Social Media Channels:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnie-mcdonald-nonprofit-leader/

Facebook: @Landmarks-Illinois-243977998189/

Instagram: @landmarksillinois/

X: @landmarksill