How to Write a Report on a Workshop

Workshops are an effective way for businesses to instruct employees about procedures and products, increase productivity and profits, and develop strong job satisfaction. Unfortunately, companies often need to limit how many they send to workshops because of staffing or labor cost concerns. Writing a strong report about the workshop can help your co-workers, subordinates and other staffers learn from your experiences.

Beginning: Get Organized

Organizing the report with a logical structure helps readers quickly determine what ideas it will include and makes connections among ideas clearer. Decide what sections are appropriate for your report and develop headings for each section, such as "Background," "Objectives" and "Discussion," as well as others for particular concepts within the workshop. A workshop covering various academic assessment tools might have one heading for each tool discussed in the workshop, for instance.

The Basics: Just the Facts

The first section of the report should explain some basic information about the workshop. Give the title and some information about the presenters so the readers get an idea of the general point and the presenters' expertise. Including some objectives helps others understand why you attended and how the information might apply to them. What did you expect to get from the material? Objectives from a new product workshop might include learning about the new products, comparing and contrasting them to other products and determining the best ways to market them to a target clientele.

Getting Specific: Round Out the Details

Briefly explain the pertinent concepts and activities covered in the workshop. Rather than providing a transcript for your readers, you need to make general points and then give one or two specific examples to clarify the ideas. Rather than attempting to report verbatim from the workshop, explain the concepts using a short paragraph or two for each major idea. Don't define concepts your readers already understand. For this portion, keep a professional, detached tone, presenting just the facts from the workshop.

Wrapping Up: Feedback and Recommendations

You may be asked to also give some evaluative feedback about the workshop, particularly if your report is for your boss. Put these ideas in a separate section with a heading that clearly differentiates it from the facts about the presentation. You might explain what was or was not useful and why, or you might focus on how the information impacts your work place. After a customer service workshop, for example, this portion of the report could list some new techniques to use and suggest a one-hour staff development training session to implement them.