Abstract:

This paper seeks to advance the author’s work in the interdisciplinary field of Human Resource management (HRM) postgraduate education and the dramatic arts. As such, it seeks to highlight the contribution which this interdisciplinary approach can make to enhancing postgraduate students’ ability in handling challenging manager / employee HR conversations, in the confines of a HE postgraduate classroom. It does so against the backdrop of a student cohort where most have had no previous experience of organisational life, even in a part-time job holder capacity. As such, students’ appreciation of organisational life is limited. This, in turn, curtails students’ understanding of the influence theoretical debates have on the application of HR in different organisational settings. From the perspective of teaching HRM at postgraduate level, much is focused upon students having some semblance of working with others in an employment context. This is all the more imperative when seeking to expose students to the art of handling sensitive employment conversations, such as those held during a performance appraisal meeting, redundancy etc. While guest speakers, case studies and company visits can be excellent in aiding student learning on many HR matters in HE, these approaches fall short in providing students with an experience of how to handle highly confidential and sensitive HR matters, .e.g. explaining to a staff member why they will not receive their performance reward. As the next generation of HR practitioners there are vital conversations which HR graduates will be faced with handling as they progress in their careers. As such this article aims to present the case for creating a more innovative way of teaching students the art of handling difficult manager / employee conversations by working with a dramatic arts organisation, and HR practitioners, to heighten the student experience on a postgraduate, HRM module. The approach seeks to build, not only on the work advanced at the Theatre of the Oppressed in Brazil, but also on the author’s continued application of the approach and the related improvements in students’ assessment results. As such, the approach seeks to illustrate the continued success which can be achieved through the application of an innovative interdisciplinary classroom approach in aiding postgraduate students in preparing for the challenging world of HR work in contemporary organisations today.

Keywords:

Applied theory, learning in action, employability, postgraduate education, drama, multicultural learning, Human Resource Management, work conversations.