How using actors in your training brings it to life for employees

Hendrix Training's Lee Dempsey explains how learners benefit from an actor's skills and experience.

Training for employees today must be engaging. The days of relying just on PowerPoint presentations and a bowl of mints on the table are over.

Using professional actors to role play real-life customer service, sales, recruitment, diversity or health and safety scenarios is a powerful learning tool for companies.

Theoretical teaching comes alive.

We all use role play as a basic tool in our own lives to work through ‘what if?’ scenarios. We project ourselves into imaginary situations so we can anticipate and practice our responses to different outcomes.

Using actors in the workplace to play characters such as customers or colleagues provides employees with real-life challenges but in a no-risk situation. Line managers discover if their team members are dealing with complaints effectively or conveying accurate sales messages.

Our clients like a skilled outsider (as opposed to a colleague, manager or real customer) who offers the right balance of challenge, expertise and safety to an exercise.

Learners can make us ‘cry' if things go wrong but that’s ok because it's not real. We aren’t going to sue you and any mistakes are always valuable learning points to examine and then move forward.

Actors who work in training are intelligent, sympathetic and supportive in helping trainees to really try out new ideas, perhaps tailor-made for an individual so they are comfortable with approaching new tasks from their comfort zone to begin with. We also bring a fresh outside perspective to the client's industry and a great deal of experience in interpersonal communications from which to draw, which is universal for any human interaction.

Hendrix provides professional actors to many clients who report how using actors as part of a day’s training highlights particular workplace issues.

The technique often triggers ‘eureka’ moments among the learners and, for employers, it drives the necessary learning and required behaviour change.

Don’t just take my word for it. Julie Mills from telecoms training provider Train 2 Win says:

“Using actors has been an inspiration. We use them to bring life to our Customer Engagement and our Sales Training,” she says. “Hendrix provides actors that are perfectly matched to the session, even at very short notice. The role play element has turned into the most enjoyable part of the training. We no longer have people dreading taking part; we now have people asking to take part.”

So, bin the mints.

For more information: Hendrix Training. [email protected]. 01892 519504