What went wrong, and why did Young Vic let it happen?

(Received anonymously by email).

I decided to write a blog post after a tweet by Lyn Gardner. I’ve been reading the blog since it started and broadly support what has been said. One of the problems is that the issues covered are widespread and varied and the blog has opened up a number of nasty wounds. The recent loss of jobs and redundancies have caused outrage but the root causes run much deeper and reflect a need for systemic change within the company.

Lyn Gardner said it perfectly and succinctly with only 140 characters at her disposal when she wrote “Situation with @YoungVicUshers seems to be less about what's been done as how it's been done which often reflects culture of a building”. I will aim for similar brevity in this post, although I feel I am doomed to failure.

First of all I’d like to say that each day there are members of staff heading into the Young Vic who are doing an amazing job. I think it’s fair to highlight the Taking Part team who engage new audiences, work with hard to reach groups and do everything in their power to uphold the heart of what we think the Young Vic to be.  I don’t want the fact that upper management have treated their lowest paid workers badly to take away from that, even though I am all too aware of the contradictions it brings.

As Lyn Gardner said the issues are not what has been done but how. Members of staff lost their jobs with no consultation and with no option of union support until the damage was done. The statement from the Young Vic offered little in the way of understanding the real issues and was more a limp explanation of what happened. Understandably they said they cannot comment on individual cases posted anonymously on a blog – I think we can all see why that is the case. However, saying that misses the point. They do not need to comment on anonymous grievances, rather they need to acknowledge that they are steering a ship with lots of unhappy passengers.  They need to come out publicly and say, we are sorry for the way in which we handled the job losses, we really screwed up, we screwed up big time.

After that they need to take a long hard look at what has gone so badly wrong, and they need to take responsibility for it. Why is it, that a couple of years ago their lowest ranking workers loved the building, loved the theatre, loved the ethos. And why is it that now they feel undervalued, not respected, and most importantly of all not listened to. The Young Vic doesn’t need to respond to individual grievances to do that, they just need to be open to the fact, that that is the reality for many of their staff and then address it.

I worked at the Young Vic for a long time, however I left a couple of months ago before the job losses took place. I was aware of what an unhappy place it was. When I was there, I was vocal and cried out for change whenever I could. Sometimes I think management relished my passion, other times I think they just wanted me to shut up and go away, but crucially whatever problems I highlighted were never acted upon. This not only made day to day working harder because things that were broken never got fixed, it also made me feel less and less valued. I was powerless. It was much easier to ignore staff and let them suffer, than to listen and make changes.

There have been a few comments bandied about that suggest David Lan has been protected by senior management as to what is happening in the organisation. I am not convinced this is true. I think David is aware but through no fault of his own, his perspective is skewed. The problems arise in the chain of command. The information he receives is refracted through the prism of the managers he speaks to. So when a problem occurs at the bottom, it is not the people at the bottom reporting to David, it is the managers of the people at the bottom. Those managers will not say “I’m just letting you know my staff think I am managing them badly”. The consequence of this is that the issue gets warped. I think it is this that gets in the way of what is really going on.

 In an article printed in the stage he is quoted as saying “If the people who are running our box office are part of our in-house teams and consequently come to our meetings and are better informed about our shows and what we are trying to achieve, they will be fully integrated into the life of the theatre.” This partly illustrates my point. It would appear he has been given the impression that change is needed as the front of house are not integrated enough. This would be better solved by asking the staff to come to meetings and involving them in conversations about the life of the theatre, not excluding or refusing to hear them.  On numerous occasions staff asked for meetings, and asked for involvement, but were told it’s too difficult to get everyone together. It seems that staff have lost their jobs because they aren’t integrated enough, which is a missed opportunity because integration is just what they have been asking for.

Since the treatment of staff has been made public I have received numerous emails and text messages from past staff members. Not front of house staff members, but staff working in many departments at all levels of seniority. They have all told me HR horror stories of the way redundancies and maternity cover have been handled. Obviously I can’t and won’t comment on others experience except to say, that these people aren’t bitter at losing their jobs (although they were obviously upset and angry at the time) every single one of them was just saddened, by the way they were treated. I mention this to reinforce the depth of the problem.

I hope with all my heart that the Young Vic can turn it around. Admittedly there is little they can do for the people who have lost their jobs. Even if they did a huge u-turn and changed their mind on everything it is too late, people are too winded, angry and upset. They have seen what value the Young Vic puts on their heads. But maybe, just maybe the Young Vic can put something in place to show those that work for them that they do care, that they are important, that they will be heard. They can of course only do this, if they mean it.

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As always we are incredibly grateful for people coming forward with stories, opinions, and issues like this one.