A three-month work-based programme that develops the people skills new graduates and non-managerial staff need to contribute with confidence — assessed against eight defined dimensions of work readiness and evidenced through triangulated feedback.
Technical competence rarely fails people in their first roles — the interpersonal demands of the workplace do. This programme develops those capabilities directly, in the participant’s own role.
Improving Interpersonal Skills is designed for new graduates and non-managerial staff who are developing the people skills needed when taking up a first job, changing roles, or making a career change. Rather than teaching these skills in the abstract, it has participants apply them to a real piece of work they are accountable for — so that learning is grounded in the situations where interpersonal capability actually matters.
Over three months, participants work through eight defined dimensions of work readiness, develop them through a work-based project, and produce a structured assessment of themselves against each dimension — corroborated by their line manager and WRIA’s central review.
New graduates entering the workforce and taking up their first professional role.
Non-managerial staff developing the interpersonal capability their work increasingly demands.
People changing roles internally and needing to build new working relationships quickly.
Professionals making a career change into a new field, function or organisation.
The programme develops, and assesses participants against, eight interrelated dimensions of interpersonal capability at work.
Conveying meaning clearly and listening with intent — adapting message, tone and channel to the audience and the situation.
Managing one’s own attention, emotions, priorities and behaviour to work effectively and reliably under everyday workplace pressure.
Contributing within a team — building trust, sharing responsibility and supporting shared goals across differences of role and outlook.
Framing a problem accurately, generating workable options and applying structured thinking to reach a sound resolution.
Weighing information, judgement and consequence to make and own timely decisions, recognising one’s own decision-making style.
Engaging with disagreement and tension constructively — de-escalating, negotiating and preserving working relationships.
Reading how influence, interest and power actually operate in an organisation, and navigating them with integrity.
Recognising different leadership styles and their effects — informing how one works with leaders and how one might lead in turn.
Each participant runs a real work-based project in their own role through the WAL formula — K + P1 + Q = P2 — applying knowledge and reflection to a live piece of work, not a hypothetical case.
Participants record progress and learning in structured monthly reflective reports, building the disciplined habit of questioning and critical reflection at the heart of the method.
Development is corroborated through a three-way loop between the participant, their line manager and WRIA’s central review — observation, coaching and self-reflection together.
A final report assessing the participant against each of the eight work-readiness dimensions, grounded in the evidence of their project.
Demonstrable improvement in day-to-day interpersonal effectiveness, observed in the participant’s actual role.
A completed work-based project that delivered a real outcome for the participant’s team or function.
A reflective practice the participant carries forward — the habit of learning from work as it happens.
The participant scopes a work-readiness project in their role, establishes the knowledge base across the eight dimensions, and agrees the focus with their line manager, under WRIA review.
The project is carried out in the work itself, with monthly reflective reporting and continuing feedback from their line manager and WRIA’s central review.
The participant consolidates learning, completes the project, and produces a final self-assessment against the eight dimensions, triangulated against external feedback.
Download the detailed outline of structure, dimensions, the work-based project and measurement for in-house delivery.
Organisations license the WRIA model and run Improving Interpersonal Skills internally on WRIA’s online platform, coordinated by their own certified administrators and under the Institute’s standards and quality assurance.