Setting The Stage For Service – Drama-based Workshops For Soft Skills Development

By Wee Beng Geok & Ivy Buche

Abstract

In 2004 and 2005, The Theatre Practice (TTP), an established theatre company in Singapore conducted a series of drama workshops for service staff of InterContinental Singapore. It was targeted at enhancing service staff's self-awareness and self-confidence, as well as communication skills, all attributes expected of service staff of a five-star hotel.

The theatre practitioners who planned and facilitated the drama workshops, saw similarities between the work of the stage performer and that of the hotel's service personnel. TTP's drama-based workshops were focused on liberating the individual's energy blocks that inhibited self-expression and limited his capacity for enjoyment and engagement in his work life. Compared with other skills development programmes, these workshops seemed unstructured and almost random in their instructional approach.

TTP's instructors/facilitators were delighted with the positive feedback they received from some workshop participants and hotel patrons, and hoped to extend the programme to other hotels/firms in the service industry. To do so, TTP needed to convince managements of service firms that theatre techniques used in developing performers could help in building the soft skills critically needed by many service workers in Singapore.

Issues: Hotel/Retail Service, Drama Based Training, Building Soft Skills

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