Role Playing Reaps Positive Results

Lana J. Chandler
January 23, 2012 | COMMENTS

You say the word “role-play” and the staff cringes. Sounds familiar? Role-playing often falls into disfavor with employees because the trainer doesn’t ensure that “realism rules.” Extremely overbearing clients and belligerent employees are the rare minority—not good examples for role-playing scenarios.

When practicing skills, trainers need to encourage a realistic environment. Give employees an opportunity to sharpen their skills in credible settings where the personalities are more real-world. A lot of people don’t like to role-play because the other person plays Attila the Hun. They act over-bearing or obnoxious so as to embarrass or humiliate the other person.

When people do role-playing well, it’s a confidence builder. Because role-playing is interactive, it keeps employees engaged in the training. They get to “experience” handling various situations they face on the job.

 “One of the things we did in a basic Mortgage Originator 101 class was to set up application scenarios—one person was the loan officer and the other was the applicant,” explains Debbie Webb, CMC, NMLS instructor at Schlicher-Krtaz Institute in Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania.  “The applicant was given the details and the loan officer had to ask the right questions to uncover the information. You can do something similar for your front-line employees. Examples are cross-selling scenarios or how to diffuse a situation with an angry client.”

Tips for Success

For more effective role-playing, Webb offers these tips:

For trainers:Make everyone feel comfortable. “The first time I was in a role-playing situation, the trainer really made me feel incompetent if I didn’t have the answers or responses she wanted to see,” says Webb.

For students:Relax, use the knowledge, and handle the situation as you would for a client—it’s a more natural that way and sometimes makes it easier to get through the role-play.

This story appeared in Branch Manager’s Letter at www.branchmanagersletter.com and is reprinted with permission. Contact publisher Lana J. Chandler at 304-343-0206 or Lana@BranchManagersLetter.com.