- Sector Scan
New Research Demonstrates Crucial Role of Inclusion in Arts Workplaces
- Posted Apr 09, 2025
3-minute read
Workforce inclusion efforts are increasingly contested within the broader public understanding and subject to major shifts in approach within both public and private institutions. Given these changes there is a renewed need for up to date and fact-based analysis about the role of inclusion in managing arts workforces.
Our research seeks to measure inclusion and understand its connections to employee well-being. This effort combined a review of the existing literature, direct surveying of arts workers conducted in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, and statistical modeling. As described in the key findings below, we learned that inclusion is an important driver of retention, job satisfaction and likelihood to recommend an employer, and that these findings hold true across demographic categories.
The report also presents a new framework for measuring inclusion with five distinct elements: Equitable employment practices, Integration of differences, Inclusion in decision-making, Belonging, and Psychological safety. Our analysis confirms that all five of these dimensions contribute something unique to our understanding of inclusion overall while being highly connected. We believe that uniting these dimensions of inclusion provides a stronger metric for measuring inclusion in future research.
A foreword from Carmen Morgan, Founder and Executive Director of artEquity, provides perspective based on years of experience working at the intersection of art and activism and grounded in the current moment.
Key Findings
Inclusion plays a critical role in job satisfaction, employees’ intent to stay at an organization, and their willingness to recommend their organization to peers.
- Employees in more inclusive workplaces:
- experience higher levels of job satisfaction.
- are more likely to recommend that a peer accept a similar position at their organization.
- are less likely to seek a position at a new company.
- Inclusion emerged as the most significant driver of these outcomes—more influential than workforce diversity or equity in access to organizational power. Inclusion is a key factor in unlocking the benefits of a diverse and equitable workplace.
The positive effects of inclusion are consistent across demographic groups, including race, gender, and sexual orientation.
- However, perceptions of inclusion vary based on employee demographics and the size of their organization.
- Employees at larger organizations tend to report lower perceptions of inclusion.
- LGBTQ employees perceive their work environment as less inclusive than their peers.
The findings highlight challenges in engaging with colleagues across differences.
- Job satisfaction and other positive employee outcomes are sometimes lower in more diverse workplaces.
- Job satisfaction was lower in organizations with a higher proportion of BIPOC or LGBTQ employees.
- The findings point to the possibility that employees, particularly those from majority groups, experience discomfort with leaders from different backgrounds than their own.
Report Conclusions
- Actively fostering a climate of inclusion is a key objective for nonprofits interested in retaining and engaging talent.
- Efforts towards inclusion should not be understood as solely for or aimed at employees from marginalized groups but instead recognized as beneficial to all employees.
- Efforts toward inclusion should consider the ways individuals of different demographic backgrounds experience inclusion at an organization.
- Simply hiring a diverse workforce is inadequate; organizations must integrate inclusive practices and equitable leadership structures to attain the full range of benefits to worker satisfaction, engagement, and retainment.
- Large organizations may especially benefit from devoting resources and effort towards inclusion efforts given the lower propensity of their employees to perceive an inclusive environment.
- Leaders from marginalized groups may be supported by organization-wide efforts towards inclusion that counteract employees’ discomfort with leadership from a different background than their own.
Carmen Morgan
Founder and Executive Director, artEquity
“The report provides us with sector-specific research to back up what our experience tells us to be true: we feel safer when those around us are respected.”