Retail Assistant (Casual)

Please note this role is being offered on a Casual contract with flexible ad-hoc work on weekdays weekends bank holidays and public holidays. The Royal Academy of Arts is under no obligation to offer you hours.

About this Role

We are currently looking to recruit enthusiastic and customer focused Retail Assistants to join our Retail team on a Casual basis.

The RA Shops are a respected well-loved and highly successful part of the RA visit; working collaboratively with our front of house teams our Retail Assistants play a crucial role in delivering the retail offer; a service and environment that reflect the ambitions and positioning of the RA.

Recognising the importance of a consistently excellent welcome across Retail locations the primary objective of this role is to provide frontline customer service and sales within an expert retail team maximising sales and trading opportunities.

About You

To be considered for this role you will be a dynamic customer service focussed individual who believes in putting the needs of a varied audience at the heart of what you do. An art or curatorial background is not essential to this role.

You will have first-class customer-facing skills and the ability to deal with a wide range of people. You will be adaptable friendly helpful and provide a warm welcome proactive assistance and clear information to all those visiting or working at the Academy.

You should be able to demonstrate a genuine interest in people and be able to engage with a high volume of visitors. You may have an appreciation for the arts but more importantly you will be passionate about contributing to the RAs story.

The RA dates way back to 1768 when a group of artists and architects persuaded King George lll to help them to establish a society for promoting the Artof Design. The original academy in Pall Mall was less than 10 meters long. Since then there have been many changes though the RAs core purpose of bringing art and design to a broad audience and championing art and artists still holds true.

Today we are a contemporary art organisation hosting internationally acclaimed exhibitions and through investment in employee training and development with courses such as Unconscious Bias LGBTQ Awareness Bystander and Mental Health First Aid training we are striving to foster a safe space for everyone through positive action. We also have Employee Network Groups Ways In Groups and an Employee Council so every employee has a voice and a way to feel heard by colleagues through the CEO.

The RA is truly a unique place both as an attraction to our visitors but also as a workplace. Our people are at the heart of all we do and we support a broad and inspiring mix of departments; from exhibitions curators art handlers researchers publishers and digital to schools and education visitor welcome fundraisers and corporate support.