Learning and Development is important in any organisation, whether it’s to reach a specific goal (such as someone achieving a promotion) or simply to upskill individuals in your team. At Orbis, we aim to host workshops each week for our sales team, covering areas such as recruitment methods, general operations, or marketing.
However, this year we’re actively trying to progress and diversify our strategy to involve workshops that can be more than just day-to-day recruitment and marketing skills. We are introducing one wellness workshop, one D&I workshop, and one professional development workshop each quarter for our team, which we’re incredibly excited to kick off!
We’ve been vocal both internally and externally on the importance of D&I as well as wellness, so being able to integrate this into our regular workshop framework ensures that the team at Orbis can have a holistic understanding of each area, as well as give them access to valuable information that they can either use in their day-to-day, or enable them to enhance the services that they offer to clients and candidates.
Why do we do this?
Naturally, the aim of our workshops is to upskill team members, but one of our other motivations behind doing regular workshops is to echo the importance of continuous learning, especially for those who are at mid to senior level in our organisation.
It can be easy to assume that top performers or seasoned senior recruiters have refined skills and varied knowledge for them to succeed in their roles.
Although this assumption, generally speaking, is true, it’s still essential to share ideas and exercise your brain so it can absorb new ideas! The fundamentals of recruitment, once honed, are skills learned for life. However, it’s the “softer” skills and in-depth workshops which can take a senior professional from good to great.
Additionally, it’s important to us as an organisation that we are providing as many touchpoints for learning and development as possible, and the workshops are just one of many ways in which we achieve this.
It keeps us connected
Our workshops are conducted in groups, which boosts connectivity across teams and enables individuals who may not liaise with each other on a day-to-day basis to share knowledge and perspectives.
We are a collaborative business by nature, so extending this into our weekly, monthly, and quarterly learning and development sessions further enforces this!
What our team says…
“The mental health workshops for me were the most useful. I never really think about mental health when you’re trying to be successful, but, at Orbis, these workshops make you think outside the box, and give you a different perspective of what you’re doing which can immensely help improve our skills. I’ve learned that good mental health is key to being successful and happy at the workplace, as well as at home. I’ve learned what burnout is and the effects of it, and the by-product of this is being more self aware to take regular breaks and look after myself” – Shakar Shorish, Scala Consultant
Looking to conduct your own workshop? Here are our top 5 tips
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- Record them for future reference. It would be naive to assume that everything you deliver in a workshop will be 100% absorbed by everybody in attendance. Having a recording allows you to have an inclusive approach to workshops as well as having resource to draw from in the future
- Use visual elements. People learn in different ways, and you want your workshops to be as digestible as possible! Visual elements (and dare we say the odd emoji) adds a bit more personality to your workshop and breaks up the content which can sometimes be complex.
- Keep them short and sweet. A workshop that lasts hours and hours will leave attendees tired and unmotivated. An hour is more than enough to deliver information, and leave an additional 10-15 minutes for questions.
- Have someone take minutes. Comprehensive notes are great to send out at the end of each workshop. Ensure there is someone taking notes during your workshops which can then be sent out post-workshop.
