Building Belonging: Onboarding and Pathways for Retention

ID: WMA2026_617

Track:

Find out how The Neon Museum dramatically reduced turnover and built a thriving, collaborative culture through an immersive onboarding program, a transparent Tier System for visitor experience team members, and summer professional development projects. Together, these initiatives connect employees to place, deepen cross‑department relationships, and create real opportunities for career growth—addressing a long‑standing gap in museum pathways. Learn how this model empowers staff, disrupts silos, strengthens belonging, and cultivates future museum professionals.

Session Information

Format: Regular session/panel (roundtable, single speaker, etc.)

Uniqueness: It introduces a rare, structured approach to onboarding and career development, offering museums a scalable model that strengthens belonging, reduces turnover, and creates real internal pathways for advancement.

Objectives: Learning Objective 1: Understand how collaborative onboarding can build belonging and reduce turnover. Participants will explore how an immersive two‑week onboarding grounded in museum history, city history, safety procedures, and cross‑department awareness strengthens connection to place, celebrates diverse stories, empowers staff, and builds a cohesive workplace culture. They will learn how shared training for FOH and non‑FOH staff reduces silos and fosters a unified institutional culture.   Learning Objective 2: Examine how tiered growth pathways support retention and professionalization. Attendees will learn how our Tier System creates transparent, achievable advancement opportunities by combining subject‑matter training, mentorship, and demonstrated skills. Participants will understand how this system fosters long‑term engagement, prepares FOH staff for supervisory roles, and even supports transitions into other museum departments—addressing a common issue in entry‑level museum work, where career mobility is often limited.   Learning Objective 3: Brainstorm strategies for implementing onboarding and growth frameworks. Attendees will participate in an activity and brainstorming session to identify their museums’ own onboarding needs and professional development gaps.   Outcome: Attendees gain a replicable model for building belonging, supporting staff development, and cultivating a more resilient workforce, regardless of museum size or resources.

Engagement: The intended audience is visitor experience managers, museum educators, HR and operations staff, emerging museum professionals, supervisors, DEAI practitioners, and institutional leaders seeking to improve retention, internal culture, and growth pathways. We will engage the audience with a brainstorming roundtable to share ideas on how onboarding can bridge silos, and a professional development mapping activity that will identify gaps and opportunities for possible tier systems in their own institution.

Relationship to Theme:

Audience

Audiences: Facilities Management Personnel Other 

Professional Level: All levels Emerging Professional 

Scalability: This model is intentionally scalable and adaptable. Smaller museums can adopt core elements—such as collaborative cross‑department onboarding, place‑based training, and transparent skill‑building pathways—without requiring additional staff or budget. The onboarding can also apply to volunteers. All museums, regardless of size or structure, share the challenge of staff turnover, limited advancement opportunities, and siloed teams. This approach provides a flexible framework that supports belonging, growth, and collaboration across departments, making it relevant to institutions at any scale.

Participants