Giving and Receiving Feedback

A half-day workshop for teams building a workplace culture of constructive feedback.

Feedback is one of the most useful skills at work — and one of the hardest to do well. This workshop explores how to make feedback constructive for both the sender and the receiver, introduces the DESC feedback model, and gives participants practical techniques for giving, receiving, and seeking feedback across their team, peers, and managers.

Duration: Half day  ·  Delivery: Online or in the ACT  ·  Cohort: 8-20 participants

Aligned to the APS Craft Capability Framework and APS Workforce Strategy 2025.

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Short Courses → Giving and Receiving Feedback

What your team will learn

Practical feedback skills participants apply to workplace conversations from day one.

By the end of the workshop, participants will explain the key factors in giving, receiving, and seeking useful feedback. They will understand how they can contribute to a workplace culture of feedback. They will demonstrate and practise a simple feedback model, DESC. They will self-assess their own communication and interpersonal skills. And they will demonstrate enhanced skills in active listening, responding to objections, and managing reactions.

What we cover

    • The value of feedback — Understanding what makes feedback constructive for both sender and receiver.
    • The DESC feedback model — A simple, practical model for giving feedback that lands well.
    • Requesting and acting on feedback — Assertively seeking feedback and using it to grow.
    • Managing up — Providing feedback to peers and managers, constructively.
    • Active listening and responding — Listening well, responding to objections, and managing reactions.
    • A culture of feedback — Building shared norms so feedback is valued and embraced across the team.

Workshop format

Half a day, delivered to your team as a closed cohort.

McMillan’s Giving and Receiving Feedback half-day workshop combines instruction, practice, and self-assessment. Participants work with the DESC feedback model and apply it to realistic workplace scenarios during the session.

At a glance

    • Length: Half day
    • Audience: All — tailored to audience as required
    • Delivery: Online (live, facilitated) or in-person in the ACT
    • Cohort size: Minimum 8, maximum 20 participants
    • Approach: Facilitated instruction, self-assessment, and applied practice with the DESC model

Who the workshop is for

Suitable for team members at any level — tailored to the seniority and function of your cohort.

Giving and Receiving Feedback is designed for team members at any level who give or receive feedback as part of their role. We tailor the content and examples to your cohort’s seniority and function before delivery.

Typical cohorts

    • Team leaders and managers giving feedback to direct reports and receiving it from executives
    • Team members in peer-heavy environments where feedback across the team matters
    • Graduates and new starters learning how to seek and use feedback well
    • Whole teams building a shared feedback culture and language

When this workshop is a good fit:

    • Feedback in the team is inconsistent, avoided, or handled poorly
    • You want to build a shared feedback culture across a work area
    • New team members need to learn how to seek and act on feedback
    • Managers want a simple, practical model they can actually use

How McMillan delivers

An evidence-based delivery approach grounded in adult learning principles and applied consistently to every workshop.

Every workshop follows the same delivery cycle—a consistent approach we apply to every workshop we run.

Our delivery cycle

    1. Initiate — We confirm outcomes, audience, delivery mode, schedule, and success measures. You get a Delivery Plan covering scope, responsibilities, evaluation, risks, and dependencies before we start.
    2. Design and tailor — Where contextualisation is needed, we shape content, scenarios, and activities to your workplace. You get finalised session materials before delivery.
    3. Deliver — We deliver online or face-to-face at your location. Sessions are interactive, practical, and designed for the roles and settings your team actually works in.
    4. Evaluate and close — We capture participant and stakeholder feedback and agreed measures of impact. You get an evaluation summary you can share with your executive.

This same delivery discipline sits under every workshop McMillan runs — non-accredited short courses and nationally recognised qualifications alike.

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Let's talk about your training needs

Tell us who you are and what you’re after — Ben or Lauren will get back to you.

Prefer to call? Phone us on (02) 6230 0266.

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