Delivering Training Differently as Director at The Experience Lab
Unusually, I sit here with only a single delivery left for the last week of the year, which is a very welcome change from the 24 sessions I crammed into in November. I think we may have reached capacity - my own certainly.
The business has gone from strength the strength and the diversity and scope of the projects we are delivering is growing, as are the skills and expertise of our tight knit team. As we continue to flourish we will be working hard to retain our Lab sensibility with all of the work that we do and to remain a boutique training provider.
This year we have travelled around the state and to South Australia, we would have travelled further but we weren't confident that we would have been let back in. Perhaps that will be on the cards in 2022.
Here are some of my personal highlights from the year:
UPSTANDER BEHAVIOURS We have been working a great deal in the space of upstander behaviours, moving away from bystanders and teaching and encouraging workplaces to stand up to inappropriate behaviours by way of calling out poor behaviour, supporting our colleagues, reporting and disrupting.
We've helped to bring this together for sessions with Woodside, Chevron and Rio Tinto - as well as integrating this into our existing offerings in Sexual Harassment and Workplace Bullying.
WA POLICE FORCE We were honoured to work with the WA Police Force around the state visiting Kununurra, Broome, Port Hedland, Karratha, Geraldton, Carnarvon, Kalgoorlie, Albany, Esperance, Bunbury and Busselton - our team got to see most of the state and some of it feeling like a rockstar in a _very_ small plane. We look forward to further developing the work we do with them in 2022.
WHATS OUR STORY? In partnership with our long term partners we developed a new version of our Sexual Harassment piece for the Law Society of WA - the same characters came back but now as part of a small law firm. We launched to over 160 people at the State Library.
CORPORATE PLAYS We got more and more creative with our immersive deliveries, incorporating court rooms, car factories and horse races. Thank you to all of those who were willing to nudge themselves out of their comfort zone for some of our most creative work.
Our dramaturg and actors also crafted some wonderful corporate training workshops on OSH, Diversity & Inclusion, Code of Conduct, Safety and Respectful Behaviours. Slugger also got another outing - this time as mechanical engineer working on Submarines.
All of these were designed to bring these topics to life, to engage participants emotionally and to instigate behavioural change. We are so thankful to all of the organisations who have invited us in to do just that.
WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT We further developed our core workshops and developed new offerings in:
Unconscious Bias - a two hour offering covering the basics of unconscious bias.
Internal Customer Service - a full day session developing participants skills to service one another inside the business.
Customer Service - an immersive event helping participants to be agile and responsive to uncertain events and difficult clients.
MANY STAGES We got to play at Optus Stadium and Crown Theatres, as well and mucking in at various rooms and spaces carved aside for us.
MASTERCLASSES + SHOWCASES We held a Practical Presentation Skills masterclass in the first half of the year and then held two showcases in September, one to show-off our work with graduates and apprentices and the second to showcase all of our work.
We love to share the work we do and we will be offering the following events next year:
March - We will be hosting a Dare to Lead breakfast (as well as a morning tea - as this session now has a waitlist).
Winter - Our Improvisation for Business/Team Building Masterclass.
Spring - Our latest Corporate Play (current rumour is it will be a musical).
TRAINING VIDEOS DONE DIFFERENTLY We continued to bring our sensibility and creative flair to training videos across a number of organisations - using our actors and facilitators to craft engaging videos which didn’t look like every other training video out there. We had a great deal of fun finding new ways to engage on screen. KARRATHA + DAMPIER We visited Red Dog and stayed on camp and gained kilos at the crib.
MY FAVORITE BIT OF FEEDBACK THIS YEAR
We’d like to thank all of those we worked with, but in particular Fiona Stanley Hospital, Perth Children's Hospital, Macmahon, Curtin University, WesTrac, RAC Insurance, Keystart, Murdoch University, Woodside, WA Police, Landgate, Roy Hill, Chevron, Rio Tinto, BHP, Western Power, WA Health, ASC, DFES, CBH Group, UNSW, Synergy and Perth Airport.
I'd also like to thank all of the team that I shared a stage with this year helping to bring learning to life and making me look good. And also to all those I didn't get to work with this year - I hope we can do so in 2022.
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