Writtle University College and ARU have merged. Writtle’s full range of college, degree, postgraduate and short courses will still be delivered on the Writtle campus. See our guide to finding Writtle information on this site.

Workplace workshops

Our industry-relevant workshops are delivered by our subject matter experts. The below workshops are structured and designed so that any organisation can attend.

We can also design and deliver bespoke workshop packages that meet the specific needs of your business. Simply, get in touch with us to discuss your requirements.

Learn how to communicate successfully with different cultures to maximise your personal effectiveness and business performance.

The ability to communicate successfully across different cultures is increasingly important in professional settings. This session offers a brief overview of the main cultural dimensions that need to be taken into consideration for successful communication across cultures. We will discuss case studies and you’ll be encouraged to bring examples from your own experience of interacting with people from different cultures.

The workshop will introduce you to the most widely used approach to intercultural communication in business environments, developed by Geert Hofstede in the 1970s. Since then, it has been further developed by scholars to take account of a wider spectrum of different cultures and be applicable to a greater variety of business contexts.

In addition, we will look at other aspects of communication that are vulnerable to cultural misunderstandings, such as turn-taking in conversation and how praise and compliments are negotiated in different cultures.

Session outline:

  • Introductions; what’s your experience of intercultural communication?
  • Introducing Hofstede’s model
  • The five main cultural dimensions
  • Turn-taking, face and politeness in international communication
  • Discussion of critical incidents

Facilitator: Dr Bettina Beinhoff

Who should attend: Executives, managers and senior managers conducting international business

Duration: half-day

Dates and fees: Available upon request

Enquire about this workshop
For more information contact: [email protected]

Read more about intercultural business communication.

Learn the power of online communities and understand how social media influencers can support your marketing strategy.

This workshop will cover online culture and society, exploring why individuals are drawn to these communities and what impact this can have on their attitudes and industry practices. This shall lead onto the 1-9-90 rule, where it is presented that 1% of online communities are creators, 9% are contributors and 90% are what are referred to as lurkers. How this has led to the rise of the social media influencer will be explored. To finish off how marketers use influencers as a marketing tool shall be considered.

This workshop will draw upon examples from the fashion and gaming industries to illustrate how these online communities have dynamically changed the face and workings of these sectors.

In advance of the workshop students may like to source a social media influencer which they personally resonate with to be shared with others during the session.

Facilitator: Katie Louise Leggett

Who should attend: Executives, managers and senior managers with responsibility for marketing decisions.

Duration: half-day

Dates and fees: Available upon request

Enquire about this workshop
For more information contact: [email protected]

Read more about online communities.

Understand how technology has impacted both the jobs market and recruitment practices and learn how to improve your organisation’s human resource function.

Digitalisation has impacted all aspects of our life. It has led to the disappearance of certain types of jobs and the creation of new ones. It has also altered the way other jobs are performed, mostly by automating tasks which has led to the need for new skills.

This workshop will explore the HRM practices of job analysis and recruitment in more detail. We will look at the trends that impact HRM today focusing on technology and how it has impacted work and changed the job market.

This session will outline the technology enabled practices in those two areas of HRM and use the participants contribution to analyse those within their own companies. Regardless of your role within the company you will learn about and hopefully contribute to the innovation of job analysis, job description and recruitment practices within your company HR function. The session will be enriched by each participants engagement and sharing of work experience. In advance of this session you can source a job description for a role within your company and be ready to share that with others.

Facilitator: Dr Irina Popova

Who should attend: Executives, managers and senior managers with and interest in or responsibility for recruitment.

Duration: half-day

Dates and fees: Available upon request

Enquire about this workshop
For more information contact: [email protected]

Read more about technology use in human resources management (hrm).

Learn about ethical and cultural branding and how these concepts can be applied to your own organisation’s brand.

This workshop will introduce you to the concepts of ethical and cultural branding, where you will gain an understanding of some of the key changes in branding strategies and consumer behaviours in recent years.

We will start with an examination of ‘value’ and why physically similar products can command very different price-points. Using the example of the recent emergence of ‘craft beer’, we will ask how beer became a highly differentiated product with mass-market goods selling for £1 a bottle, whilst ‘craft’ ales can command prices upwards of £80 for the same volume. Unpacking this, we will discuss the move towards authenticity and meaning in branding, where particular brands represent an ‘ethos’ and set of values that resonates with consumers.

Working with the ideas of Douglas Holt on cultural branding we will go through several examples of how iconic brands have established key meaning systems that promise to resolve particular socio-cultural contradictions for consumers. From this, we will draw out the three elements of a cultural brief for a brand, and examine what this means for our management of people, as well as external communications.

Anticipated learning outcomes:

  • awareness of the difference between mass advertising and contemporary branding.
  • recognition of the elements of a cultural brief in branding.
  • an understanding of the cultural and ethical dimensions of iconic brands.
  • an appreciation of the challenges of authenticity for communications and people management.

Facilitator: Professor Christopher Land

Who should attend: Executives, managers and senior managers with an interest in or responsibility for their organisation’s branding strategy.

Duration: half-day

Dates and fees: Available upon request

Enquire about this workshop
For more information contact: [email protected]

Read more about ethical and cultural branding.