Would you believe it? ENO, cutting musicians, expands its People Team
NewsIn the midst of reducing its orchestra to chamber size and its chorus to a barber-shop ensemble, English National Opera is advertising for a new member of its People Team, one of the irrelevant inventions of its departed director Stuart Murphy.
The new People person will be paid £30-35,000 p.a. for two days in-house work a week. The job involves assisting with ‘onboarding’ and advising on parental leave.
Full job spec below.
Meanwhile musicians and singers are being pushed through the exit doors.
English National Opera offer something different – world-class, accessible opera, available to everyone. Our staff are the heart of the organisation, and we are looking for an Assistant to join the busy People Department.
From free Opera tickets to the chance to work in London’s iconic Coliseum, being part of our People Team is a varied, interesting job that will suit someone who is looking to gain a range of generalist HR experience. As People Assistant, you will be the first point of contact for all internal inquires, assist with onboarding and induction, act as advisor and administrator across the employee lifecycle, and support the team with payroll and reporting, alongside any project work.
If you have had some experience advising on absence and parental leave, are adept at issuing employee paperwork and can communicate effectively with a range of stakeholders, then please look at the job pack for more information. If you’re also highly organised, proactive and able to prioritise your workload, then we would love to hear from you.
This appointment will be made on merit, but we believe that diversity strengthens and enriches us, and that it is the responsibility of everyone at ENO to make the arts and cultural sector a more diverse and equal place.
As ethnically diverse and disabled people are currently under-represented at ENO, we particularly encourage and welcome applications from under-represented people.
My reading of the ‘two days per week’ reference is the number of days that the staff member will be required to work in the office under ENO’s hybrid working arrangements, with the rest of the week working remotely. There’s no way this role would pay £75k per year.
I’m outraged of course, but read the job spec properly – min 2 days a week in the Coli and the rest would be working from home. They don’t actually have enough office space for everyone to be in every day since they sold LBH
For an organisation the size of ENO, ENO has a very, very small HR team. It’s ludicrous to think an arts organisation is exempt from having proper governance.
It’s not a £75k pro rata job, it’s a a £30-£35k per annum full time job with ‘min two days a week *in office*. Nearly all jobs now are hybrid with home working.
What is happening to the musicians is truly awful but please PLEASE let’s not make it an ‘us and them’ between admin vs musicians.
Thanks for making the point I came here to make!
Hate to spoil the pile-on but, y’know – payroll is actually quite important in a company.
At ENO, Payroll is a separate department from the “People” Department.
Not sure of your point!! If there are no performers who are you going to pay? The directors more or less fix their own pay and bonuses. Usual story of too many chiefs and not enough Indians……
Far worse than this is the proliferation of senior management roles with both a Director of Audience Insight and a Director of Commercial and Visitor Perception. Voices for music and the staging of opera are heavily outdated now on the Management Team. In addition the Development Team at my last count included nine posts. Peter Jonas never needed so many managers to run a far larger company in the power-house years.
The idiocy of all this is that there is too little money left to employ a full orchestra. Only around 65 opera performances are presented in a year. Appalling value for money. I can see the Arts Councils point.
I have adored watching opera at ENO for 50 years. Its always the musicians who get cut first. And never have I seen such incompetent management of the company. I am torn between rage at the potential loss of ENO, and its devastating loss of work for musicians, and rage at its appalling waste of scarce funds.
But never before has ENO slandered its Music Director in a such a viscous letter to the members of its Friends scheme as that posted out by email today. That ENO can turn on Martyn Brabbins with such unwarranted insults to his integrity is a disgrace after all his work rebuilding its musical resources – its superb orchestra, chorus and music staff – with so much personal mentoring and evident care for individual artists. All this in an environment of ongoing chaos. Brabbins may not be the most dynamic opera conductor but as a Music Director he was one of ENO’s most experienced, highly skilled and dedicated. Brabbine is respected by all the music industry like few others.
For me the treatment of Brabbine, the viscous name calling to ENO supporters is the final straw. I am today throwing in my ENO Frends’ membership.
Brabbins would have been party to all discussions as Music Director, none of it could have been a surprise to him.
What an absolute disgrace!
It’s started. Musos v. Admin. Creeping into our musical institutions, where Admin/Clipboards/Suits are more important than the actual musicians. Shows what contempt they have and lack of understanding regarding ENO = musicians and singers.
This is not surprising. The last time I checked, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s management staff was bigger than the Philadelphia Orchestra itself. Note management never gets cut, only musicians.
ENO’s management will be miniscule compared to the Philadelphia Orchestras.
The LSO Administration Team outnumbers LSO Members. Who is the more important?
Sorry – it’s becoming typical these days that cuts involving people who, by definition have to be actively involved in what a company actually DOES are being made, while at the same time more admin staff are being appointed. Despite there possibly being justification for this during ‘normal’ times, this is a crassly stupid and insensitive decision by ENO.
“You, a uni-dexter, are exactly the type of chap we’d be looking for….”
The pot is being stirred – as if it needs more stirring.
“English National Opera offer something different…” It certainly does – an opera company without a full-sized, decently paid orchestra. By the way, shouldn’t the job spec. say ENO offers (rather than ‘offer’)?
Seems to me that the more admin staff you employ to sit all day twiddling about online, the worse the cost effectiveness and the actual efficiency of the company becomes. As a previous SD commenter has noticed, in the not so distant past, whole companies used to exist with 5 or 6 dedicated admin in an office. They knew what their job was and they got on with it. They didn’t swan around schmoozing, talking themselves up and wasting time as they do nowadays. Net result….opera companies reckon they can’t afford to employ salaried musicians or chorus.
As a full time orchestra player for 47 years, the admin were ALWAYS more important than the performers. WNO did the same in stabilisation, the orchestra was cut and the admin was increased
Indeed, and of course Rolls Royce performances are expected for Morris Minor salaries. ‘Would you believe it?’ Yes of course we would Norman.
I would outsource the whole back office. Banks offer payroll. Use the chorus and instrumentalists to help out with running the company, many of them are highly qualified oxford and cambridge graduates. They understand the product and what it needs. You don’t need a casting department, get the music staff and conductors to choose the singers. Only 4 to 6 operas a year doesn’t warrant a whole department. As its not a touring company, you can easily out source PR and advertising. If you think this can’t be done, put me in charge and I will prove you wrong. If you were running a company producing widgets, would you cut production and increase the office or the other way round? Complete madness.
When I joined a full time orchestra in 1976, 1 lady booked the extras, organised the tours, did the pay etc all without mobile phone or computers, she spent a lot of time in a phone box. Nowadays, the orchestra does, at most 25% of the work but has 7 people doing the same job as the original lady. They are, of course, all on their mobiles
A competent admin and management function is necessary to run a organisation, to comply with laws, to secure funding, etc. But fair’s fair. Orchestra members at ROH campaigning recently to restore their 10 per cent 2020 cut told me Management had had a pay rise this year. Now that doesn’t sound fair.
Onboarding.
Is that the newspeak for walking the plank?
“On the board ye varmint”
I spluttered when I read the Job Spec and actually had to look up what “Onboarding” meant. An Americanism going back to the 70s. Thank heavens I never encountered it it before I retired (UK). What’s wrong with “orientation” or “integration”. I immediately thought of the form of torture, that begins with “water”. Also, in my experience, employees who called themselves “people persons” did a lot of talking, and not much else.
I know! One of their musicians should apply for the job. As it’s part time, that still leaves him/her lots of time to rehearse and perform. It appears to pay more than a lot of the musician positions even if they don’t pay for the music making part of the job…..
Yep. It’s all down to maxising profit for the coliseum! The orchestra and chorus cost the ENO business money letting out the coliseum makes money. The organisation appears to be totally lacking in loyalty to the musicians and chorus who built It’s reputation! The arts council’s funding cuts are just being used as a means to get rid of the performers and take control of the coliseum to maximise income and increase the pay of the already overpaid directors and admin staff. Where is the musicians union in all this?Powerless! The performers are paid less than before covid lockdown and cost of living increases have not been implemented for years!…..
I really feel this divisive admin vs musicians rhetoric is deeply unhelpful.
The division here is about top level management and everyone else – that’s completely different.
Bureaucracies always try to expand as a measure of their importance. They are highly adept at this.
Sensible organisations seek to limit the size of their cost centres because they know how easily they can get out of control.
Not confined to ENO, by a long way.
Some People Team people are more preferable to other people, who aren’t People Team people. Those people used to be called “employees.”
Perhaps they should be adding a lawyer instead.
People team. As opposed to pussy cats. Having had the benefit of the full orchestra for Peter Grimes last week, perhaps we need a reincarnation of Benjamin Britten to produce an opera attending to the absurdity of the new form of clericalism, not least WFH combined with being part of a ‘team’.
Living near Stratford (Avon variety) I have had a long association with the RSC. Under the great Guy Woolfenden there 14 full time musicians covering 2 theatres and one administrator. Now they have TWO full time players and four administrators. Kafka rules again!
Lord luv a duck. Whatever next? The lunatics have taken over the Institution. This post should be abolished immediately – along with most of the personnel department; there are clearly going to be many fewer people to manage anyway after these disastrous cuts!