Workplace training takes a dramatic new twist

You could almost hear the collective intake of breath as Helen Green was awarded more than £800,000 (€1,184,000) in damages recently. Employers, down-trodden workers, the same kind of bullies that drove the Deutsche Bank administrator to a nervous breakdown - it was like a united gulp, the sound of the office landscape shifting.

Not that you'll find many companies without an official policy for dealing with bullying - just flick through your company handbook, which is probably unread and unloved. Your manager might have done some emergency brushing up (out of fear rather than compassion), but the handbook is always one of those things you intend to read some time in the far distant future.

But the problem does need tackling. Most marked about Green's case was that some of the bullying behaviour didn't seem like anything much: blowing raspberries, not being in the phone directory - it was not until these, along with more damaging actions, were all brought together that a full picture emerged.

Employees need to be able to see the bigger picture before it's too late, which is where bringing actors in can be useful.

It might seem like the office already has enough drama queens, but whether it's bullying, dealing with problem staff, or just training, drama-based learning is gaining ground.

Before the panic sets in, let's be clear: there is no acting involved for staff. Workplace drama specialist Steps - which is involved in 25 projects a week across the public and private sectors - believes in keeping the acting to, well, the actors.

"In some organisations, workplace drama means asking the staff to get to their feet to role play an irate customer or a bullying manager," says Steps director Angela McHale.

"But in our experience, this can be an excruciating experience to both do and watch, unless your staff happen to be particularly extrovert. We prefer to leave it to our professional actors - most of whom have temped in a whole variety of offices while waiting for the next acting job - to do the improvisation, while the staff are left in peace to absorb the message."

It was employment law and religious discrimination that provided the key impetus for a recent Steps drama involving the 1,800 staff at Axa PPP healthcare.

The plot revolved around Julie, a committed Christian who took a successful claim for religious harassment to a fictional employment tribunal after colleagues made jibes about her beliefs and she was passed over for promotion. The live action - staged at the office - included Julie's irate husband storming in and being manhandled by security, a confrontation in the cafeteria and a distraught Julie being pursued and comforted by a genuine HR manager. While staff initially thought the events they were witnessing were real, they quickly realised that it was a 10-day, live training exercise.

A dedicated intranet site where employees could read blog entries purportedly written by Julie and her manager recorded 16,000 hits over the 10 days, and staff were encouraged to feed in comments on what the various characters should do and say next. Suggestions were then fed to Steps and incorporated in the following day's events.

Matthew Norman, HR projects manager at Axa PPP, says: "Providing this type of training is like a fire drill - you hope it will never be needed but you have to be prepared in case the worst happens . . . It got our employees discussing religious intolerance, harassment and bullying. The soap opera was cheaper, less disruptive and more effective than any other form of training."

Forward-thinking companies have already embraced using actors to improve their recruitment policies or staff appraisal systems.

New uses for workplace drama include the screening of job candidates who may be potential paedophiles.

The managing director of one acting firm says: "It involves using drama to help employers such as head teachers and leisure centre managers screen out people who would be inappropriate in a setting such as a primary school or swimming pool.

"We have been asked by a number of local authorities to bring in actors to demonstrate how recruiters can ask a series of foolproof questions that will help identify individuals who may have a hidden agenda for wanting to work in a school."

Sarah Perugia, a 35-year-old theatre actor, drama teacher and philosophy graduate, earns her crust as a Steps actor. She has improvised roles for clients such as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Camden Council and the General Medical Council, and recently played Julie in the Axa PPP soap opera. "We like to immerse ourselves in the cultural aspects of an organisation's life: researching the dress code, the meetings behaviour, the office banter, the business jargon . . . Most of our stuff is non-scripted."

She adds: "Live theatre - like the Julie story - is great because the audience direct much of the action and feel really involved; without ever being picked on to actually act.

"We also used 'invisible theatre' with that particular project, where the staff didn't actually know it was a piece of drama until we were well into our stride."