No job ads, no interviews: Museum’s Titanic hiring spree triggers overhaul

Museums Victoria has revised its hiring policies after anti-corruption agencies investigated whistleblower allegations it skirted public sector rules when it appointed staff who had personal connections with senior executives.

The appointments were part of a recruitment drive during the blockbuster Titanic exhibition, which ran from December 2023 to April 2024 and was the museum’s most popular touring show since 2016.

The success of the exhibition prompted senior management to extend exhibition hours and argue that existing staff were too stretched – necessitating the urgent hiring of extra visitor engagement officers and retail assistants.

The grand staircase at Melbourne Museum’s successful Titanic exhibition, held in late 2023 until April 2024.Credit: Tim Carrafa

The hiring round recruited nine people in all – eight of whom had personal connections to senior staff, including some with links to the family of chief operating officer Sean Royal, who already had two daughters working at the museum.

Documents seen by The Age show the roles were not publicly advertised, and no formal interviews were conducted. One former employee said retail jobs at the museum were highly sought after and often attracted hundreds of applications. The casual roles paid about $30 an hour.

Whistleblowers claimed the new Titanic staff were hired without a transparent selection process, according to documents they submitted to Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.

The museum used a so-called “Talent Bank” to fast-track the hiring of the nine staff. Museum staff angered by the hiring, and not authorised to speak publicly, say the talent bank has not been used since Titanic and that few staff members had heard of a “talent bank” before its use at this time.

Museums Victoria chief operating officer Sean Royal.

IBAC deemed the matter a public interest complaint, meaning it was worthy of further investigation, and referred it to Victorian ombudsman Marlo Baragwanath. A focus of the complaint to the ombudsman was Royal – who is ultimately responsible for Museums Victoria’s hiring division – whose daughters still work at the museum. Royal was contacted for comment.

Baragwanath found concerns around the hiring spree were legitimate, and came to an agreement with the museum that its internal policies be changed as a result of the complaints. While no disciplinary action was taken against staff, the ombudsman was satisfied that similar conduct was unlikely to be repeated after the policies were brought into line with public sector guidelines.

In correspondence seen by The Age, Baragwanath wrote that Museums Victoria had, as a result of reports to her office, “revised its recruitment and employment policy, and recruitment and selection procedure, to include steps to address conflicts in recruitment, conflict-mitigation strategies and record conflicts in a central register”.

The museum in its response to the ombudsman, also obtained by The Age, agreed that, in hiring casuals for urgent staffing needs, “some candidates had close associations with existing Museums Victoria staff, and disclosed this to the chief operating officer before the appointments were finalised”.

The museum also admitted that its “rapid response” hiring “had risks ... and should have been managed by offering fixed-term roles”. Future hiring, the museum told the ombudsman, would be done differently.

In other correspondence seen by The Age, a senior investigator for the ombudsman noted the museum had agreed to review recruitment policies “to ensure they align with the Victorian Public Sector Commission’s employment principles and standards, especially with regard to conflicts of interest”.

The investigator also said museum staff involved in hiring must now undergo mandatory recruitment training, and that the museum had engaged an external agency to conduct a cultural review.

Some museum workers, though, say one change Museums Victoria has made since the ombudsman’s investigation – a conflict-of-interest policy introduced this month – is more lenient on public servants within the institution than the policy that had preceded it.

The new policy specifically notes that “in some [conflict-of-interest] instances, no action will be taken”.

Asked if the hiring practices during the Titanic exhibition met public sector standards, a Museums Victoria spokeswoman declined to comment on individual staff but said the institution “is committed to the highest standards of integrity” and had “full confidence in our people”.

She did not directly respond to questions about whether the “talent bank” remained in use, saying only that the system was consistent with public service policies, and that its wider processes were in line with Victorian Public Sector Employment principles and standards.

An email from Royal, obtained by The Age, urged staff to refer friends, family and volunteers to the talent bank with an eye to future recruitment and suggested staff then refer their contacts “directly” to a specific museum email address.

But a subsequent email exchange provided to The Age shows an applicant inquiring, to the specific email address circulated by management, about a visitor engagement officer position during the Titanic exhibition. The museum’s People and Culture division responds to the applicant that “our job opportunities are listed on the Museums Victoria website”, with no reference to a “talent bank”.

Ultimately, the ombudsman halted its scrutiny of Museums Victoria after deciding it had “taken sufficient action” to prevent “further investigative action by our office”.

The Museums Victoria spokeswoman declined to comment on specific hiring decisions during the Titanic show, but confirmed that “additional visitor engagement staff were employed after the exhibition had opened to ensure a positive visitor experience”. She said the institution could not comment on confidential or personal information, or ombudsman investigations.

The claims have come to light as the museum shrinks its visitor engagement officer workforce – a move that has enraged these staff, prompting a public protest this month, in front of the museum on the VIP opening night of a Lego Star Wars exhibition.

Museum visitor engagement officers, supporters and Community and Public Sector Union officials at a protest at the VIP event to help launch the Lego Star Wars exhibit, outside the Melbourne Museum in Carlton last month.

The museum’s proposed restructure would see many visitor engagement officer roles made redundant and tasks such as overseeing gallery spaces and assisting visitors taken over by security guards.

The changes would affect staff at Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks.

“They’re killing off their greatest asset in cutting visitor engagement services,” said Karen Batt, state secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union, which represents museum staff. “No great museum the world over would do this. There’s another motive at play here.”

Batt argued the plan would diminish the visitor experience by displacing museum-employed staff and pave the way for an expanded role for MSS Security, the private contractor already providing security across the museum’s three sites.

A Museums Victoria spokeswoman said consultation with staff about the changes was ongoing.

The proposed restructure has prompted public protests and sparked online backlash. A petition opposing the museum’s proposed restructure has attracted nearly 3000 signatures, while a TikTok video showing staff protesting and a person in a dinosaur suit dancing to chants of “Don’t dismiss us, the dinosaurs will miss us” at the Lego Star Wars exhibition launch has attracted over 16,000 likes.

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