National Social Appeals Board: Appeal meetings that are effective and credible

The challenge

At appeal meetings, the board's lawyers present and discuss cases before a decision is made. It's a special kind of meeting where the chair must steer the discussion, present the case clearly and argue credibly – often under time pressure. The board wanted to keep strengthening and developing its staff's skills in leading these meetings.

Our approach

Before the first course we attended an appeal meeting ourselves to understand the workflows and challenges. The course was then built over two days with two trainers:

• Day 1: The communication situation and the chair's role, structure, credibility, questioning technique and argumentation.
• Day 2: Body language and conversation technique – and video exercises where participants chair meetings using cases from their own work and receive individual feedback.
• Experienced chairs: A dedicated program later followed for staff with many years' experience.

The result

The course has been repeated over several years with groups in both Copenhagen and Aalborg. On one course, participants rated the trainers 5.9 out of 6 for clear, effective teaching, 5.7 for motivation and 5.5 for important new knowledge.

‘How useful it was. It was concrete, practical and aimed directly at the task.’

– Head of Office, National Social Appeals Board

‘The trainers had really got to grips with our specific appeal meetings.’

– Lawyer, National Social Appeals Board