Fair Work Policy
As noted in our Working Culture Statement (WCS), Magnetic North is working to create a culture that is safe, comfortable, respectful and fair. All our work is artist-centred and governed by our values of Exploration, Responsiveness and Care.
Care is particularly important when it comes to our approach to Fair Work:
Care is core to our culture; we are kind and enabling; we listen to and take care of everyone we work with, including ourselves; we celebrate people’s full and wider lives; we are sensitive to the needs of all who encounter us; we try hard to engage people we have not yet reached.
We follow the Fair Work Framework approach as follows:
EFFECTIVE VOICE
Internally and with staff:
Whilst as an organisation, we have a hierarchy with varying levels of responsibility across our small staff team of three part-time people, we operate non-hierarchically, with decisions that affect the company being made collectively with input from all at our weekly staff meetings. Our Working Culture Statement (WCS) outlines how activity should feel for all involved and we use this as a touchstone when making decisions about programming, schedules, and projects. We use company away days to periodically work on company-wide strategy, policy and planning.
We have annual reviews with each staff member which is an opportunity to speak frankly, celebrate success and identify areas where further support or training might be required.
Externally, with artists and freelancers.
Our non-hierarchical approach extends to the rooms and processes we facilitate across our activity. Our WCS is shared with all freelancers at the contracting stage, so they are clear about how work with us should feel and know they are encouraged to speak up if it doesn’t meet that standard. We have informal check-ins and check-outs built into our development and rehearsal process, and more formal, regular production or team meetings for productions or projects that require them. We create open pathways of dialogue between staff and freelancers and work hard to create trusting relationships so that individuals feel they can speak to us – even about sensitive or difficult issues. However we also have a designated Working Culture Champion on our board, who can be a point of contact if an individual doesn’t feel comfortable to raise something with staff directly.
We collect anonymous feedback from artists and freelancers after each engagement and adapt and change our approaches based on it.
OPPORTUNITY
Internally:
We have a strong commitment to equalities, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and seek to model this through our organisational structure. Across our board and staff we have people with a number of protected characteristics, and the range of lived experience that this brings helps to keep us focused on our responsibilities. As a small, part-time team of three people, there is less opportunity to have a wide range of lived experience within our staff. We mitigate this by working regularly with a diverse range of associates, panellists and freelancers when making key strategic or curatorial decisions. As part of all recruitment processes we question the applicant’s approach to EDI and having a nuanced and ideally lived understanding of barriers and marginalisation within the industry is a key consideration when making our final decision.
Each year we commit to training all staff on a particular EDI focus, with Anti-Racism, Disability and LGBTQIA+ Awareness training planned for this and future years. We plan to open these up to the freelancers we work with and hope this will contribute to improving understanding and conditions in the sector at large.
We aim to support our small staff team’s individual needs as best as we can. We offer flexible working hours, the option to work from home or from our office at Summerhall, and do our best to accommodate and meet all access requirements including any workplace adjustments that might be required. We have a ring fenced training budget – the spend of which is determined by our annual reviews with each staff member so that we can respond to specific training and professional development needs.
Externally:
Most of our freelance work opportunities are offered via open call. We frequently work with external panellists to mitigate internal unconscious bias and to involve a wider range of lived experience when selecting applicants for opportunities. We set specific targets across our activity and currently have a particular focus on inclusion for D/deaf or Disabled and Global Majority artists – setting a target of a minimum representation of one Global Majority and one D/deaf or Disabled artist as Lead artists on each project we deliver. We also have a consistent focus on supporting artists outside the central belt who might experience geographical barriers to making work. We do this by partnering with organisations based outside the central belt and making specific commitments to working with a certain proportion of locally-based artists.
We use collaboration to enable us to offer bespoke and specific opportunities for artists with other protected characteristics or lived experiences, for example working with Parents in Performing Arts (PiPA) and Luminate to deliver targeted projects. We are currently developing a collaboration with Sanctuary Queer Arts on a similar basis. We are formalising this approach from 2024 so that one of our Space/Time Residencies each year will be in a partnership explicitly for artists with a specific lived experience.
As well as setting specific targets for each project we deliver, we also aim to take a bespoke approach with individual artists. Building specific opportunities to continue to work with and support an artist as their practice and career evolves avoids box-ticking and focuses on building long-term relationships.
Our Artist Support programme offers free Continuing Practice Development, mentoring and networking opportunities to artists who have engaged with us. We survey artists and curate this strand of activity according to their expressed needs. We offer bursaries for travel, childcare support or time, to enable all artists to attend.
SECURITY
Internally:
Our employees are offered PAYE contracts and we offer no zero hours contracts. We are an accredited Real Living Wage Employer.
We review salaries annually and seek to increase in line with cost of living and inflation costs.
Externally:
We have established fee levels taking into consideration ITC, Equity, Bectu, Musicians Union and Scottish Artist Union Rates. We pay above many of these industry minimums and are a Real Living Wage accredited Employer. We typically pay fees in instalments, ahead of engagement, during and at the end to ensure freelancers are paid regularly and their cash flow is not affected – however we are flexible about payment structures and arrangements according to individual needs. We offer flexible access and wellbeing support, tailored to the individual as required. We structure working patterns and schedules around individuals as much as we can, and appreciate that freelancers may be juggling several jobs that might at times overlap so allow flexibility to support that.
FULFILLMENT
Internally:
Job satisfaction is a paramount priority, we invite our staff team to shape their role around not only what the company requires but what areas of activity they find more rewarding and where they feel they can make a difference. We invest in professional development for staff and as part time workers, allow for flexible working patterns to enable them to take up other opportunities.
We have realistic expectations of what can be achieved within the working day and the hours each team member has allocated to the company. We are proactive about scheduling our activity to make sure staff have the time and space they need to do their work well.
Internally / Externally:
We recognise that typical working patterns within our industry can run counter to what is in the best interests of an individual’s wider life and wellbeing. In our Working Culture Statement we “recognise that unsociable hours, ‘pinch points’ necessitating additional labour, and creative processes with emotional consequences are common in our industry. Whilst we might not always be able to avoid these things, we will mitigate them wherever possible – through mindful scheduling, appropriate resourcing and staffing, and careful safeguarding and support.”
We strongly believe that to make the best work, we need to ensure that individuals feel well at work, and that their other life commitments are not compromised through their engagement with the company. In order to safeguard this we implement the following practices:
- Our typical working day is 10am-5pm to better accommodate childcare and caring responsibilities
- Wherever possible, we build schedules and touring plans around the needs of the individuals working on the project
- In the past year we have trialled ‘Do Nothing Days’ for our artist network – a paid wellbeing day with no expectations. – Following the success of this scheme, we are now exploring building these into all freelance contracts in the future. Some of the positive responses we received from last year’s recipients are included below:
“I’ve always been a bit guilty of pushing myself over my limits and rarely ever “do nothing”. Shortly after receiving the “do nothing fund” I had a couple of days of feeling under the weather and was due to go in to my 0 hours job. Knowing I had that cushion there was great because it allowed me to take that time off to rest without feeling the financial worry, and I could resist the internal pressure to use that “time off” to work on other applications/freelance work which I usually end up doing in these scenarios.”
“Being self-employed and a mother I always feel a great sense of guilt and anxiety if I am not spending every waking hour doing something productive that will benefit my work/career or tending to my family’s needs. So the ‘Do nothing pay’ allowed me to truly have a rest day with no goals or objective other than to switch off and rest. The reset has done me wonders and I feel so much more optimistic going into 2024.”
Sarah Ord
“It reminded me, even after 30 years employment in the field, that I am still a creative. It made me keep going. The Do Nothing Pay bought me mental and emotional space not to give up.
I cannot thank Magnetic North enough for your vision in what artists need and how Do Nothing Pay might help.”
“For me I used it as a day to rest and also reflect on the next step I would like to take in my journey. We’re always caught up in trying to make a living, finding that next job…. that it is nice to have the means to stop just for a day and enjoy a bit of self care at the same time. And also just taking the time to play my instruments for the joy of it, and not specifically practising for a job. Which I think is always important to get back to as an artist because we all make art for the love of if and keeping that joy helps us make good work in the end.”
Marie Gabrielle Koumenda
RESPECT
Internally / Externally:
Our Working Culture Statement speaks most powerfully to this priority in outlining our commitment to a safe and respectful working space.
The WCS is sent to everyone we work with at the contracting stage, and we also signpost to the Harassment in Performing Arts Guide, to outline our commitment to a safe and respectful working space. Our WCS encourages the raising of concerns if the working space does not feel safe and respectful: “Magnetic North’s core staff is a small team of three part time workers and we recognise that at times we will fail. As such, we want the job of fostering this atmosphere to be a shared project, so we ask that everyone who works with us in any capacity plays their part in contributing to this – by checking in with and looking out for each other, by speaking up if you witness something that doesn’t seem right, and by being as aware as you can of your own needs and the needs of those around you – voicing those as they arise and supporting others to do the same… If ever your experience doesn’t match the one outlined above, we invite you to speak to us – even if it means pressing pause on a project or if you’re not sure exactly what is going wrong, we are always willing to listen and we’ll do all we can to support you and improve conditions..”
Our priority is to build relationships of trust with employees and freelancers, utilising deep listening and explicitly advocating for care and wellbeing above project outcomes.