Visitor Experience Assistant

About the role

Here at People’s History Museum (PHM), we welcome a local, national, and international audience and our visitors are firmly at the heart of everything we do. We are passionate about the contribution our Visitor Experience Team makes in ensuring all visitors have an interesting, stimulating, engaging visit that inspires them to get involved with and explore ideas worth fighting for. This is an exciting opportunity to join our dynamic Visitor Experience Team and gain hands-on and varied front –of house experience, spanning visitor engagement, events, operations, learning and retail.

The team of nine, plus the Operations Manager, are also central to the museum’s day –to day public facing work, including looking after the building, working with colleagues throughout the museum, supporting the Engagement Team with learning activities and tours, helping the Venue Hire Team with events, and assisting the Head of Development with running the museum shop.

About People’s History Museum

People’s History Museum is the national museum of democracy, telling the story of its development in
Britain: past, present, and future. The museum provides opportunities for all people to learn about, be inspired by and get involved in ideas worth fighting for; ideas such as equality, social justice,
co-operation, and a fair world for all.

PHM currently welcomes a local, national and international audience, attracting 125,000 visitors annually, as well as reaching people online through digital activities. The museum involves audiences and communities in all aspects of its work, using models of co-curation, collaboration and crowd-sourcing when developing and delivering programmes of activity. Engaging people directly in the work of the museum helps to build a passionate and committed audience who become supporters and advocates for PHM, while ensuring we are shaping authentic content representative of diverse audiences, providing an inclusive space for their voices, stories and ideas. PHM’s innovative programme-led approach explores important subjects and issues relevant to us all today.

PHM has an annual turnover of around £1.5 million, employs over 30 members of staff and has a team of freelance staff and volunteers. PHM is funded by Arts Council England (ACE) as a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) and by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) Culture and Social Impact Fund. PHM is an independent museum, charitable trust and company limited by guarantee, with a Board of Trustees, a Trading Company Board, and an Audit and Risk Committee.

Staff structure

Job Description

Salary: £20,812 pro rata (& pension contribution to the Greater Manchester Pension Fund)

Hours: Part time (options for 7 or 14 hours per week, Saturday and/or Sunday)

Annual leave: 24 days plus bank holidays (pro rata)

Contract: Permanent

Responsible to: Operations Manager

Location: Based at People’s History Museum

Key responsibilities

Working within a team of Visitor Experience Assistants and Supervisors, your visitor facing role connects closely to PHM’s vision of being the ‘go to’ place for learning about, getting involved in and being inspired by ideas worth fighting for. You’ll provide an engaging experience and exceptional level of service for visitors, and proactively contribute to the museum’s trading activities and upkeep of its buildings.

This will include:

• Supporting visitor experience and engagement with the museum’s collections and exhibitions, learning activities and events through:
  • Providing an informed and engaged welcome as the first point of contact for visitors
  • Responding confidently and appropriately to visitor enquiries, comments, complaints and access requirements
  • Having up-to-date knowledge of the museum’s mission, values and programme of activity, and being pro-active in sharing this information with the public
  • Carrying out routine patrols of galleries, regularly checking radios, monitors and reporting problems
  • Delivering gallery tours
  • Assisting with educational visits and school bookings
  • Reporting visitor feedback as required, both formally through the museum’s impact and evaluation activities and informally

• Supporting the museum’s trading operations and general operational activities through:
  • Encouraging charitable giving
  • Reception, shop and telephone duties, including till, credit card machine and cash handling
  • Assistance for venue hire provision, including set up of equipment
  • Cleaning and housekeeping tasks in galleries, offices and external areas
  • Maintaining the highest standards of security and safety of the museum building and contents, and reporting problems with displays and buildings, potential security threats, and suspicious activity.

Experience, knowledge and skills

We are looking for a candidate who can demonstrate experience, knowledge and skills across the following criteria, with the opportunity for ongoing training and development to support the successful candidate once in post.

How to apply

Please outline how your experience, knowledge and skills meet the job description and provide details via our online application form. Your application will be assessed and scored against the job description using the information provided.

Deadline for applications: 5.00pm on Wednesday 5 July 2023

Interviews: Friday 14 July 2023, in person at PHM

If you have any questions or would like to arrange to discuss the role please contact Jackie Royle, Finance & Operations Officer at hr@phm.org.uk.

Equity

PHM prides itself on being a welcoming and inclusive organisation, profoundly committed to advancing equality and diversity in the broadest sense. We highly value the benefits that diverse perspectives bring to PHM’s mission.

We recognise the museum currently underrepresents people of colour, disabled people, LGBTQI+ people and those with intersecting identities in our workforce; PHM is actively working to address this and encourages applications from these backgrounds. While the successful candidate will be selected purely on merit, in the event of a tie between two candidates with equal experience, we may select a candidate who helps us better represent the communities the museum serves.