Description

POSITION: Manager of People and Culture

CLASSIFICATION:  Full-time

STATUS: Exempt

REPORTS TO: Managing Director

SUPERVISES: TBD

LOCATION: Preference is for this individual to be NYC-based. Must be on-site in Williamstown, MA for the summer season (typically early June to late August) and various moments throughout the year for specific events. 

COMPENSATION RANGE: $1,200 to $1,400 per week

HIRING TIMELINE: Applications are to be accepted until the position is filled with a priority application deadline of February 9. Application review and interviews are to be conducted starting February 12 with an anticipated start date of March 4.

Job Summary

The Williamstown Theatre Festival is seeking a Manager of People and Culture who will oversee and continue the work of creating an equitable, safe, and enjoyable workplace for all employees. This position requires a strategic thinker, mediation skills, theater management experience, cultural awareness, and a sense of humor. Through collaboration with the full-time staff, EDIA organizations, and HR consultants this position will ensure sufficient support is being provided for members of the organization at every level. 

Reporting to the Managing Director, this role helps ensure that the Festival staff has proper resources, timely information, and opportunities through cross-departmental coordination and collaboration. The ideal candidate strives for transparency, is interested in process and consensus-building, and is also willing to exercise authority when appropriate.

This is a seven-month role (February - August), with the potential for ongoing permanent full-time or part-time placement based on business needs.

In 2020, Williamstown Theatre Festival made a commitment to anti-racism and entered a period of learning, reflection, analysis, and action. We acknowledge the need to dismantle outdated systems and build an organization that is structurally and culturally more equitable, diverse, inclusive, accessible, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive. 

In February of 2022, we published a report outlining the steps we intend to take. These actions reshape every aspect of the Festival’s operating model, including workplace culture, training programs, artistic development and programming, and production. The changes will impact everyone who participates in the Festival, including year-round and seasonal staff, artists, trainees, trustees, and audiences and help us create a season of artistic expression free from exploitation and bias. Williamstown Theatre Festival seeks to ensure that the Progress Report remains a living document to keep us accountable. Click here to view the original Progress Report annotated with updates from February 2023 on the actions we have taken to date, where we fell short, and learnings that will impact future work and action.

Responsibilities and Expectations

• Organizational Development
  • Identify gaps in workflows and communication processes and work with staff to build stronger, more collaborative, and more efficient ways of working
  • Steward the advancement of recommendations from internal organizational assessment 
  • Serve as the liaison between the Festival and external People and Culture consultant to draft and oversee Festival HR policies
  • Publish public updates (e.g., progress reports) in the first quarter of each year on the Festival website
  • Address patterns in reported behavior without breaking confidentiality
  • Communicate with external cultural organizations
• Company Hiring/Recruiting Practices 
  • Enforce policies around unbiased and equitable hiring practices and steward recruitment efforts with an emphasis on diversity
  • Re-build Festival-wide recruitment efforts with input from external consultants
• Company Culture & Staff Development
  • Oversee Festival-wide social gatherings throughout the summer for seasonal staff and in the winter months for the full-time staff
  • Build and nurture an atmosphere of transparency and open communication
  • Support and facilitate decision-making practices aligned with the Festival’s values
  • Work with third-party People & Culture Consultant to improve employee relations and workplace environment
  • Lead the staff Anti-Racist Working Group and participate in the Anti-Bias Action Committee of the Board of Trustees alongside the other staff members of the Anti-Racist Working Group
  • Embrace the Festival’s commitment to EDIA and Anti-Racism by actively participating in and encouraging behaviors among participants that exemplify respect; interrupting microaggressions and other behaviors that hinder our EDIA and Anti-racism efforts; engaging in the diversification of the festival; and demonstrating a degree of cultural competency that encourages healthy relationships with all company members
  • Support staff through various methods of professional development
  • Coordinate and schedule engaging educational talk-backs with external speakers
• Policy and Safety
  • Collaborate with Managing Director on revising, developing, and maintaining WTF policies
  • Collaborate with seasonal Company Manager and their department
  • Monitor working practices among staff to ensure that safe working practices are being followed and compliance with any policies or laws is being met

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE: 

• You have previous Human Resources or Social Work experience through internship or full time employment
• You have training or expertise in conflict resolution
• You are a creative, analytical and process-oriented thinker capable of remaining flexible and adapting to new situations, tasks, or challenges 
• You are highly-organized and self-motivated, capable of handling multiple projects and prioritizing appropriately
• You have excellent written and verbal communication skills and are able to quickly craft and deliver clear, accurate, and engaging messaging in both internal and external communications 
• You have excellent interpersonal skills, want to foster a cooperative work environment, and are able to interact well with and adapt communication styles to a variety of situations and with a variety of individuals, including staff, artists, Festival Board members, and members of the Festival and Williamstown community 
• You have previous experience working in (or appreciate for) an arts festival or high-activity theatre environment
• You are able to maintain confidentiality and security of sensitive staff and company information

We appreciate the value of myriad life and work experiences, and we recognize that many paths might adequately prepare someone for this role. We encourage anyone who believes they would be a good fit to apply.

About Williamstown Theatre Festival

Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought emerging and professional theater artists together for 70 years to create a thrilling summer festival of world premiere work alongside fresh, new revivals. New plays and musicals commissioned, developed, and produced at the Festival fill theaters around the world. In recent years, WTF has been represented on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally by The Sound Inside, The Rose Tattoo, Grand Horizons, Seared, Selling Kabul, Unknown Soldier, and Lempicka, among others. Cost of Living, which premiered at WTF, received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Learn more at wtfestival.org.

Working and Living in Williamstown

Williamstown Theatre Festival’s season takes place on the beautiful campus of Williams College in Williamstown, MA with backdrops of the Berkshire, Green, and Taconic mountain ranges. Williamstown, MA (estimated pop. 7,813) is located in Berkshire County (estimated pop. 128,657) in Western Massachusetts and is an hour’s drive from Albany, NY and 30 minutes from Pittsfield, MA. 

The Williams College campus and the 62’ Center for Theatre and Dance are within walking distance of Spring Street, which has several restaurants with dine-in and takeout options, a pharmacy, a coffee shop, an ice cream shop, a movie theater, and several stores. The nearest grocery store is a 10-minute drive from campus and not within walking distance. Having a personal vehicle does provide more flexibility in grocery-shopping and expands dining and activities options. For those who bring vehicles, parking is free at designated locations on Williams campus with a parking pass. For a list of all the things to do and see in Williamstown and the Northern Berkshires, visit DestinationWilliamstown.org.

All seasonal staff are provided housing free of charge on campus at Williams College. Housing is dorm-style with private bedrooms and shared common areas, including bathroom and kitchen. Williams College housing is not air-conditioned. Weather ranges from evenings on the cooler side but can also be quite warm with temperatures in the 90s with high humidity.

We acknowledge that Williamstown Theatre Festival is a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) located in a county that is 91% white, according to the US Census Bureau. We are actively engaged in the work of becoming a more equitable, diverse, inclusive, accessible, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive institution that not only welcomes BIPOC artists and staff but nurtures an environment that allows everyone to thrive. More specific actions on these efforts can be found in our Progress Report on our website: https://wtfestival.org/work-learn/.

Williamstown Theatre Festival is committed to telling diverse stories and to fostering an inclusive environment both onstage and off. We are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and teammates. We believe that opportunity, access, resources, and rewards should be available to and for the benefit of all. Therefore, WTF is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants shall be afforded equal employment opportunities without discrimination because of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, age, sex/gender (including pregnancy and gender identity), disability, military status, veteran status, marital status, familial status, ancestry, genetics, or any other class or characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. Candidates from populations underrepresented in the theater field are strongly encouraged to apply.