Labour Relations Skills for HR Business Partners Training Course

Course overview

HR Business Partners are often the first advisers called when a union representative challenges a manager’s decision, a grievance signals a wider workplace issue, or collective bargaining reaches an impasse. In these moments, HRBPs must balance operational demands, employee relations risk, collective agreements, policy consistency and constructive union relationships. This course equips participants to move beyond reactive case handling and provide credible, commercially aware labour-relations advice to managers and senior leaders.

Participants examine the full labour-relations cycle: mapping stakeholders and bargaining-unit structures; interpreting collective agreements; preparing for consultation and negotiation; managing grievances, disputes and disciplinary issues; and working effectively with employee representatives. They practise interest-based bargaining, grievance analysis, case chronology development, settlement-option evaluation and communication planning. The programme also addresses the HRBP’s role in organisational change, including restructuring, workforce flexibility, policy changes and consultation obligations.

Delivery combines instructor-led frameworks with realistic management-union scenarios, document reviews, role-play negotiations and facilitated peer challenge. Participants work with grievance records, collective-agreement clauses, consultation plans and negotiation briefs rather than abstract examples. By the end of the week, each participant produces a Labour Relations Action Plan for a current or anticipated workplace issue, including stakeholder map, risk assessment, escalation route, communications approach and recommended management actions.

The course is designed for experienced HR practitioners moving into business-partner roles, as well as established HRBPs who need stronger confidence advising leaders on unionised or collectively represented workforces. It is equally valuable where employee representation is emerging and the organisation needs a more disciplined approach before formal disputes arise.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Analyse collective agreement clauses to identify management rights, employee entitlements and potential interpretation risks
• Construct a labour-relations stakeholder map covering union representatives, managers, employee groups and escalation channels
• Prepare an evidence-based grievance case file using chronology, issue framing, relevant policy and remedy options
• Conduct interest-based bargaining using mandate setting, issue prioritisation, package proposals and concession planning
• Advise managers on consultation requirements for restructuring, workforce change and policy amendments
• Assess dispute risk through a structured impact-likelihood matrix and recommend proportionate intervention actions
• Draft clear management communications for union consultation meetings, grievance responses and negotiated outcomes
• Produce a Labour Relations Action Plan with accountabilities, milestones, risk controls and success measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HR Business Partners — who advise operational leaders on union, grievance and workforce-change matters
• Senior HR Advisors — who manage complex employee-relations cases and need stronger collective-relations judgement
• Employee Relations Managers — who coordinate dispute prevention, policy application and representative engagement
• HR Managers — who need to align site or business-unit practices with collective agreements
• People and Culture Partners — who support organisational change in represented workforces
• Industrial Relations Specialists — who want a structured advisory toolkit for partnering with business leaders

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical HR experience and be comfortable discussing employee relations cases with managers. The course assumes working knowledge of core HR policies, disciplinary and grievance procedures, confidentiality, documentation standards and the basic purpose of trade unions or employee representatives. Participants should be able to read workplace policies and, where available, a collective agreement. Bring a current anonymised labour-relations issue if possible. Prior negotiation training, legal qualification, payroll expertise and advanced spreadsheet skills are not required. Jurisdiction-specific legal advice is not assumed; participants learn a structured framework for working with local counsel and applicable law.

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor-led briefings to establish labour-relations frameworks, followed by applied work on collective-agreement extracts, grievance files and consultation scenarios. Participants prepare negotiation mandates, test management positions in union-management role plays and receive structured feedback on evidence, language and escalation choices. Small groups analyse a multi-stage workplace dispute, identifying missed intervention points and practical remedies. Each day closes with a work-based application task, culminating in an individual Labour Relations Action Plan reviewed through peer and instructor challenge.

Course outline

Day 1: The HRBP role in labour relations

• Labour-relations operating model and HRBP accountabilities
• Union recognition, bargaining units and representative structures
• Stakeholder mapping for managers, representatives and employee groups
• Management rights and employee protections in collective agreements
• Distinguishing individual employee relations from collective labour relations
• Labour-relations risk indicators and early-warning signals
• Escalation routes between HRBPs, employee relations, legal counsel and leadership

Workshop: Participants map the stakeholders, decision rights and escalation risks for an anonymised workplace relations issue and produce a stakeholder engagement plan.

Day 2: Collective agreements, consultation and change

• Clause-by-clause collective agreement interpretation method
• Past practice, custom and inconsistent policy application
• Consultation versus negotiation: purpose, timing and evidence
• Change-impact assessments for restructuring and workforce flexibility
• Information-sharing protocols and confidentiality boundaries
• Consultation planning for shift changes, redeployment and policy amendments
• Documenting agreements, minutes, actions and unresolved issues

Workshop: Participants review a collective-agreement extract and build a consultation plan for a proposed shift-pattern change, including risks, messages and meeting milestones.

Day 3: Grievances, disputes and case strategy

• Grievance intake, issue framing and scope control
• Case chronology construction and evidence-source mapping
• Fact-finding interviews and representative participation
• Policy, precedent and collective-agreement cross-checking
• Remedy analysis: corrective action, settlement and non-monetary options
• Dispute-risk matrix using likelihood, impact and relationship factors
• Writing reasoned grievance responses and management recommendations

Workshop: Participants work through a multi-issue grievance file and produce a case chronology, risk assessment and recommended resolution pathway.

Day 4: Negotiation and relationship management

• Interest-based bargaining compared with positional bargaining
• Negotiation mandate design, authority limits and approval gates
• Issue prioritisation, bargaining ranges and package proposals
• Concession planning and reciprocal trade-offs
• Responding to hard bargaining tactics and impasse signals
• Managing meeting dynamics between operational leaders and union representatives
• Post-negotiation implementation, communications and relationship repair

Workshop: Participants conduct a management-union negotiation role play and produce a signed-off negotiation brief, proposal package and implementation communication.

Day 5: Strategic labour-relations advisory practice

• Advising executives on labour-relations options and consequences
• Industrial-action preparedness and business-continuity coordination
• Labour-relations dashboards and leading indicators
• Trend analysis across grievances, absenteeism, turnover and disputes
• Governance for policy exceptions and locally negotiated arrangements
• Building manager capability for respectful representative engagement
• Ninety-day labour-relations action planning

Workshop: Participants present a Labour Relations Action Plan for their own organisation or case scenario, receiving instructor feedback on priorities, controls and executive messaging.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures, ILO Convention No. 98

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions