What is a Professional Development Workshop and Its Role in Career Development

Any specialist tends for career growth and professional development, but the problem is as follows: after vocational education is completed, it is not so easy to organize your own education. Lack of free time for both training and searching for the necessary materials forces many to turn to professionals for help, so professional development workshops, training and courses are becoming more and more popular. Moreover, now in the UAE, there are even such classes where the main emphasis is not on specific professional skills, but on the process of career growth, regardless of the field of activity.

Features and benefits of professional workshops

A workshop is seldom used in its pure form. In practice, it is combined with a regular seminar (for example, leadership development workshops), when they first present some training information, and then consider it in practice. Like any other process, the workshop has its pros and cons.

Among the advantages of the workshop is the opportunity to gain practical knowledge and skills at the very moment. Workshop is a practical action for learning the material and gaining skills. You get valuable practical skills, you work right here and right now. That is, you not just attend some classes, but get a real skill, and this is a huge advantage!

As for the drawbacks, the main one is the possibility to miss some information. Often in practice, it looks like this: a coach (presenter) explains the topic briefly, and then says something like that: "Everything is very simple about it. I’ve explained the main things. The rest of it you will understand in the process. " And in this case you may miss or misunderstand something, and a coach simply has no time to explain everything to everyone.

As for the structure of a workshop, it can be divided into three stages:

• Introductory part;
• Description of the main theme of the workshop (for example, the leadership training workshop);
• Summarizing.

On average, the workshop takes up to 1 hour. The more participants are present in the workshop, the worse for them: a coach simply does not have time to talk to everyone and answer all the questions that arise, so the best number of participants in a workshop should be no more than 10, in order for a trainer to answer all the questions. In this case, everyone can ask own questions to a trainer and get answers. When the number of participants decreases, the effectiveness of training increases, but the cost of such event grows.

Thus, if the workshop is organized and conducted qualitatively and a trainer is completely immersed in the problems of the participants, actively analyzes all the issues concerned with them and helps in solving the arising difficulties, then the workshop is really a great way to master one or several useful and necessary skills in one evening!

Professional workshop ideas

Regardless of what area you are an expert in, there are a number of important characteristics that will help you make your career. Here are these qualities:

• Self-presentation and the ability to evaluate yourself objectively. Your professional skills and knowledge are also a commodity that you need to be able to sell. The opportunity to effectively present yourself and achieve the maximum possible result is an invaluable skill that will help in career growth.
• The ability to independently learn, find the necessary and important materials and constantly work on yourself. After all, the relevance of professional knowledge directly determines the competitiveness of a specialist.
• Business conversation. The skill of business communication with customers, competitors, colleagues, and partners is very important because nobody works in a vacuum.
• Basic skills in working with digital and information technologies are necessary for everyone because it is with its help that you can carry out self-education.
• Foreign language skills.
• Knowledge of the norms of business etiquette, especially if you are making a career in another country.

These and many other skills required for career development are considered at professional development workshops in Dubai, UAE, for example, professional workshops, offered by the Atton Institute.