Why Role-Play Is Our Favourite Training Tool

We use role-play simulation as a teaching tool in a variety of settings including medical education, management training and organisational culture workshops. The common thread in all these settings is the importance of “soft skills” like communication and emotional intelligence. Some people say these skills are hard to teach and learn but we don’t agree! Here’s why we find role-play simulation to be the perfect tool for teaching soft skills.

Why Role-Play?

In soft skills training there is no ‘one size fits all.’ Trainees need to find the approaches and techniques that work for them. A realistic role-play scenario, like an aircraft simulation, allows the trainee to achieve mastery through trial and repetition.

As well as being useful for practising and cementing soft skills, role-play can also be used as an assessment tool (e.g. during company induction and training, or performance evaluation).

Different forms of role-play are appropriate for different situations. In-house role-plays can be useful for ‘quick and dirty’ training to illustrate simple points. For more advanced training it’s helpful to have professional help – not just actors but people who have been further trained in the techniques of role-play simulation.

Why Professional Role-play?

A professionally presented role-play scenario:

•        Is realistic
•        Is consistently delivered (i.e. fair to all trainees)
•        Is precisely calibrated for client and context
•        Gives the trainee accurate, usable feedback
•        Greatly enhances transfer of training to the workplace (trainees actually practice their skills in lifelike work-place settings)

We have over 200 highly trained role-play professionals around New Zealand. We book almost 4,000 hours of role-play annually. You can see some of our fabulous clients here and some things they had to say about us here.