Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Action learningLearning & development

Drama-based training: Treading the training boards

by Nadia Damon 18 Mar 2008
by Nadia Damon 18 Mar 2008

Drama can be an effective training tool in certain learning situations. Just make sure you choose the right ones.

The ability of drama-based training to engage people in learning is leading more learning and development practitioners to incorporate this form of intervention in their training programmes.

Craig Simes, sales manager at CragRats, a company that has worked with supermarket chain Asda and the Post Office, claims that drama has been one of the fastest-growing learning media in recent years, with many companies using it instead of more intrusive methods.

“Organisations understand they need to be far more innovative about the training they provide. The days of role-play companies are numbered – because any training programme that reduces self-esteem is ineffective,” he says.

Drama techniques, if used appropriately, are ideal for experiential training, using the skills of an actor to foster trust, build collaboration and allow risk-taking. That’s the view of Joanne Swatkins, business development manager at Purple Monster, a company that uses role play. She says drama games and rehearsal techniques, rather than performance, are used to stimulate delegate thinking, challenge behaviours and encourage team playing.

Illustrate

At its simplest, drama-based training uses actors or theatrical techniques to illustrate a particular outcome. This approach can involve a relatively conventional presentation to a large group of people – such as on a health and safety catastrophe. Or it can involve more intimate groups of delegates using the Forum Theatre methods pioneered by Augusto Boal in the early 1970s.

The effectiveness of drama-based training lies in its ability to present short scenarios where the audience can relate to the situation and the build-up, says Simes. However, in addition to their dramatic prowess, he says most actors have exemplary communication skills. Swatkins says before a training day, Purple Monster actors often go into a workplace, carrying out the work or shadowing someone in a one-on-one capacity.

During the training, actors typically interact with delegates, ask them questions and give feedback.

Inviting

Forum Theatre techniques involve presenting a scenario and then inviting the audience to direct the action. The actors will talk to different groups, who can stop and start scenes and look at alternative perspectives. Simes claims this method of interaction enables people to put the theory into practice, although he stresses that all the action is overseen by a facilitator.

According to Simon Thomson, director at Steps Drama Learning Development, the experiential aspect of drama-based training means it has a lasting effect on people.

He says it’s particularly effective in any training scenario that involves changes in behaviour, enabling delegates to look at challenging issues in a safe environment where it’s OK to get it wrong.

When shopping for a drama-based training specialist, Thomson advises any prospective client to “peel the onion” – viewing websites carefully, requesting references or case studies and viewing the approach in action. “We write fantastic proposals, but with experiential learning, you can’t beat getting a company in and going through the process. I would encourage people to see and sample what they’re buying. Any good company will be running seminars and this should make this easy.”

Case study: Rok

Building firm Rok employs 4,000 staff. Keen to reduce the cost of accidents – in both people and financial terms – and improve staff and community safety, its North West Division wanted to launch a new health and safety programme.

CragRats said it needed to tackle a blame culture so staff would feel they could report hazards or accidents without fear of reprisal. It devised a series of scripted scenarios backed up by facilitated workshops, coaching and discussion.

The scenarios were written in consultation with Rok, and the team also went out to sites and observed behaviours. The workshop sessions were designed to be a springboard for discussion, exploring the personalities, attitudes, behaviours and situations they experience at work, and guiding Rok’s employees towards making connections between their own behaviour, that of others and how they link to health and safety.

Some 30 training events reached 1,221 staff at various sites. The intervention, which received a 2007 National Training Award, reduced Rok’s accident frequency rate by 87%, it says.

Avatar
Nadia Damon

previous post
Is it time to take the plunge and pursue senior employees post termination?
next post
Computer reservations knowledge drives up travel agents’ salaries

You may also like

Young people’s skills don’t match employer needs, finds...

11 May 2022

How flexible learning can close the digital skills...

9 May 2022

Productivity blighted by users’ tech problems, research reveals

6 May 2022

Half of employers want to replace apprenticeship levy...

7 Apr 2022

Learning and talent management: how a united strategy...

2 Apr 2022

Demand for L&D professionals soars as firms prioritise...

30 Mar 2022

‘Clear market failure’ to meet reskilling needs, say...

15 Mar 2022

How to ensure that ‘bad days’ don’t happen...

15 Mar 2022

The importance of being an ethical leader and...

15 Mar 2022

Mentoring unsuccessful when employees lack empathy, study finds

10 Mar 2022
  • Apprenticeships are the solution to your recruitment problems PROMOTED | Apprenticeships have the pulling power...Read more
  • What it really means to be mentally fit PROMOTED | What is mental fitness...Read more
  • How music can help to ease anxiety at work PROMOTED | A lot has happened since March 2020, hasn’t it?...Read more
  • Why now is the time to plug the unhealthy gap PROMOTED | We’ve all heard the term ‘health is wealth’...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+