Tate Reviews

Management are poor. Tate adopts an unsuccessful impersonal approach to managing their staff, and there is no attempt to get to know employees at all. This approach does nothing but distance management from their team and create a depressing working environment for everyone. Staff are constantly called in for intimidating and demoralising 'catch up' meetings where a member of the team is reprimanded or threatened with disciplinary meetings. Usually these are over the staff member speaking out, suggesting more efficient ways of doing things or matters that the staff member has little control over, e.g occasional lateness due to train delays. Managers also seem not to trust their staff, which adds to this already prevalent divide and causes employees to get frustrated and uncomfortable in the company of management. Rudeness, belittling comments and constant questioning of what staff members are doing is a regular occurrence at Tate. Employees are never listened to and even though managers make effort to introduce communication tools such as comment boxes, the comments posted in them clearly have little effect and are read and not acted on. Managers are rarely present on the shop floor and we find that issues that we have

The management team is worse than it's ever been. Suggestions from staff members are not welcomed as managers feel that their authority is undermined by the responses. Instead of appreciating the fact that staff members work hard to keep the shops running and there might be times when a retail assistant is more aware of the situation in the shops than a manager, employees are diminished and most of them feel too uncomfortable to suggest anything. There’s a level of insecurity when it comes to management’s confidence and strength in facing the problems that may arise, which results in a nervous and scatty way of managing the shops and employees likewise. Management doesn’t take time to get to know their staff and use their strengths towards the overall smooth running of the shops. Budget seems to be more important than the human factor which, to be fair, could be expected of a shop, however, gallery shop is not just any shop and there won’t be a single Tate shop left if members of staff feel so uncomfortable that they quit one by one. Most of these people are well educated, creative individuals, with PhDs, Masters degrees and years of experience in retail and art world. Not only are they not respected, they are spoken to like children and bossed around the shops instead of being appreciated for their initiative and willingness to make Tate better. Approaching problems and communicating with staff is also something worth a mention as there’s no honesty and straightforward way of dealing with issues, only sneakiness and “catch-ups” on the shop floor which employees feel very negative about. Also, actual communication between managerial (not to mention higher managerial) staff and retail assistants seems to have suffered in the past year.