Maintaining good employee relations is clearly an essential component in HR management and developing a successful business. Although all are involved the buck of employee relations stops with HR management.

HR management skills investment to maintain harmony and unity provides a handsome return but should forces and events conspire to disrupt the normal flow of day-to-day business then it is imperative that HR management and supervisors are equipped with the skills needed to minimise damage, restore relations and heal wounds.

Knowledge of procedures, personnel legislation and skills in negotiation and employee relations management is practised by role playing a 2/3 day real life HR management case study.

Programme Introduction

In a world of increasing personnel legislation, today's HR management cannot take a cavalier approach toward employee relations by hiring and firing at will. Ill advised action can have grave repercussions.

This employee relations training programme places an emphasis is on legal awareness including race relations, sex discriminations and equal pay . The broader aspects of these three acts are discussed and evaluated relative to both employee relations within the company and society in general.

Consideration is given to the question of who is an employee and looks at the various options, e.g. full-time, part-time, sub-contractors and temporary workers. The various components of any employment contract are examined, i.e., expressed, implied, incorporated and statutory. These four types of term are then set against the statutory duty to provide specified written details within the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993. From this foundation major areas of employment rights from a number of statutory acts are considered, typically, time off for specific duties, lay-off and short time working, maternity rights, discrimination, sick pay, redundancy, deductions from wages, notice periods and payments in lieu.

How sympathetic you are towards employee relations will determine the extent that employees are sympathetic towards
the business and its management, goals, culture, conditions, etc.

Maintaining sound employee relations does not mean sacrificing discipline, on the contrary, it is how discipline is maintained that makes are breaks employee relations. Therefore, the legal aspects of good discipline, together with grievance procedures , are examined in detail. In the event that dismissal becomes necessary then the four elements to establish fairness are considered, fair reason, fair procedure, reasonableness and equality. Guidelines for good practice and the requirements for interviewing are reviewed. Finally rules for conducting industrial action, and industrial tribunals , and the implications for employee relations for the company, trade unions and individual employees are reviewed.

Whilst it is essential that participants understand the legal framework the main aim of this HR management course is to practice employee relations when dealing with a potential industrial dispute, i.e., the participants need to live and breath a real life dispute to acquire confidence in their ability to successfully manage it.

Whilst an industrial dispute cannot be contrived it can be simulated.

Therefore this HR management employee relations training course is based upon a real life case study , that includes actual contractual agreements and procedures . This is a comprehensive pack that will take time to study. It is therefore recommended that participants study this pack as pre-course preparation. The case study will involve role playing (four separate roles are envisaged) and will last circa two/three days. Through a series of meetings participants will have to negotiate their way through a potentially explosive situation.

In this way participants will experience the complexity and
sensitivity of employee relations and the role of procedures and
agreements in maintaining peace and discipline.

To achieve a successful HR management case study outcome the course will review negotiation processes and if required spend some time developing negotiation skills. If utilised the negotiation skills module will examine strategy, tactics, conventions, and how persuasion, psychology, questioning and listening skills can be used to considerable effect. Whilst the programme will throughout emphasise HR management implications and responsibilities in personnel terms and the need for increasing care in the field of employee relations.