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During summer 2021, our apprentices and others shared that their experience at the O’Neill was inequitable, overly taxing in relation to compensation, and lacking sufficient educational opportunities. In response, we capped their work week at 40 hours per week, increased their weekly stipends, and reassigned many of their responsibilities to full time staff members to decrease the burden on the apprentice cohort.

 

After carefully considering the needs for our 2022 summer season, our staffing levels at the time, and our financial position, we decided not to field an apprentice cohort that summer. We came to this decision for several reasons. Chief among them is that we need additional time to continue evaluating the program, assess what we can offer young professionals moving forward, and ultimately determine whether or not the apprentice model is right for the O’Neill.

 

Additionally, in 2022 and beyond, we have maintained the changes implemented during the 2021 season and introduced additional changes that we believe ensure a better experience for O’Neill staff. These include:

 

• Continuing the practice of our professional conferences being dark on Mondays

• Spreading out the summer schedule to decrease overlap in production calendars and reduce staff workload

• Focusing on supporting our core programs and reducing the ancillary programming

• Maintaining the pay increases we instituted in summer 2021

• Adjusting the pay structure to better align with the job responsibilities for supervisors

 

We also received feedback that our employee policies were not clearly defined, comprehensive enough, or uniformly disseminated. We are continuing to update our policies and streamline our onboarding processes to better communicate our anti-bias, anti-harassment, and EDI policies, as well as our reporting procedures, to all staff members.

 

In addition, we have adjusted our HR structure in order to create a better chain of reporting, so that no one finds themselves delivering concerns to the person responsible for their hiring, onboarding, and/or weekly compensation. It is our intention to create avenues for addressing concerns that don’t pose conflicts of interest, and we will continue to refine them as they are put into practice.

 

Part of our efforts to implement a stronger employee support structure has been our ongoing work around equity, diversity, and inclusion at the O’Neill. We began a partnership with Equity Quotient and undertook a series of their Learning Labs for the staff and board. We are continuing that partnership to identify where we can better align our values with our organizational and artistic practices. Equity Quotient is also helping us develop additional materials for staff and board training.

 

In summer 2021, we met our 2020 commitment to add five new BIPOC members to our board of trustees. We are continuing to recruit new members to take this goal even further. We also wrote a standing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee into the board’s bylaws, and that group began meeting regularly. Though we have made strides in diversifying our staff, we haven’t come as far as we had hoped. We are working closely with the EDI Committee to address the ways we can better perform in this area. We have begun posting paid advertisements with outlets more likely to reach a diverse talent pool alongside targeted outreach and will continue to do so moving forward.

 

Lastly, all professional staff now receive anti-harassment and anti-bias training. During the summer season, each conference also incorporates this training into the start of their rehearsal process.

 

These steps are a continuation of our ever-evolving, values-based agenda aimed at creating a more inclusive, diverse, and supportive organization. We are committed to finding more opportunities to advance these efforts in the months and years ahead.