Workshops

Workshops bring a group of people together who have ‘expert’ knowledge or experience of the role – managers and role holders as appropriate – with a facilitator, usually but not necessarily a member of the HR department or an outside consultant.


The members of the workshop begin by getting agreement to the overall purpose of the role and its key result areas. They then develop examples of effective and less effective behaviour for each area, which are recorded on flipcharts. For example, one of the key result areas for a divisional HR director might be human resource planning, defined as: Prepares forecasts of human resource requirements and plans for the acquisition, retention and effective utilization of employees, which ensure that the company’s needs for people are met.

The positive indicators for this competence area could include:

● seeks involvement in business strategy formulation;

● contributes to business planning by taking a strategic view of longer-term human resource issues that are likely to affect business strategy; 

● networks with senior management colleagues to understand and respond to the human resource planning issues they raise; 

● suggests practical ways to improve the use of human resources, for example the introduction of annual hours.

Negative indicators could include:

● takes a narrow view of HR planning – does not seem to be interested in or understand the wider business context; 

● lacks the determination to overcome problems and deliver forecasts; 

● fails to anticipate skills shortages, for example unable to meet the multiskilling requirements implicit in the new computer integrated manufacturing system; 

● does not seem to talk the same language as line management colleagues – fails to understand their requirements; 

● slow in responding to requests for help.

When the positive and negative indicators have been agreed the next step is to distil the competency dimensions that can be inferred from the lists. In this example they could be:

● strategic capability; 

● business understanding; 

● achievement motivation; 

● interpersonal skills; 

● communication skills; 

● consultancy skills.

These dimensions might also be reflected in the analysis of other areas of competency so that, progressively, a picture of the competencies is built up that is linked to actual behaviour in the workplace. 

The facilitator’s job is to prompt, help the group to analyse its findings and assist generally in the production of a set of competence dimensions that can be illustrated by behaviour-based examples. The facilitator may have some ideas about the sort of headings that may emerge from this process, but should not try to influence the group to come to a conclusion that it has not worked out for itself, albeit with some assistance from the facilitator. 

Workshops can use the critical incident or repertory grid techniques, as described below.