People Management and HR Compliance for Line Managers Training Course

Course overview

Line managers make employment decisions every day: setting expectations, approving leave, addressing absence, recording concerns, handling underperformance and responding when behaviour affects the team. Poorly handled conversations or incomplete records can create inconsistent treatment, grievances, employee relations escalation and avoidable legal risk. This course gives managers a practical framework for acting fairly, following policy and involving HR at the right point without transferring routine people-management responsibility to the HR team.

Participants learn how to translate HR policies into everyday management actions. They practise setting measurable objectives, giving evidence-based feedback, conducting probation and performance meetings, managing short- and long-term absence, responding to conduct concerns, and documenting decisions using factual language. The course also covers equality, discrimination, reasonable adjustments, confidentiality, data handling, disciplinary and grievance process stages, and the boundaries between a manager’s role, HR advice and legal advice.

Instructor-led workshops use realistic employee scenarios, policy extracts, meeting notes, attendance data and case files. Participants rehearse difficult conversations, assess the quality of written records and work through decision points with peers and an experienced facilitator. Each participant leaves with a line-manager HR compliance action plan, a completed conversation and documentation toolkit, and a certificate of completion.

The course is designed for new and experienced line managers, supervisors and team leaders who are accountable for people decisions but do not work in a specialist HR role. It is particularly valuable for managers taking on direct reports, leading dispersed teams or managing recurring attendance, performance or conduct issues.

Course objectives

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

• Apply a manager’s HR compliance decision framework to performance, absence, conduct and employee-relations cases
• Set SMART objectives and record evidence-based performance expectations in a performance review template
• Conduct structured feedback, probation and underperformance conversations using the SBI and GROW models
• Distinguish informal resolution, formal capability, disciplinary and grievance routes using a case triage checklist
• Document meetings, concerns and management decisions in factual, confidential and audit-ready case notes
• Identify equality, discrimination and reasonable-adjustment risks before taking management action
• Manage short-term and long-term absence using attendance review data, return-to-work meetings and escalation criteria
• Produce a 90-day people-management compliance action plan for their own team

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Line Managers — who make day-to-day decisions about performance, attendance, conduct and team wellbeing
• Newly Appointed Managers — who need a reliable process for managing their first direct reports
• Team Leaders — who supervise operational staff and must apply HR policies consistently
• Supervisors — who need to address workplace concerns before they become formal employee-relations cases
• Department Managers — who must balance delivery targets with fair and defensible people decisions
• Project Managers with Direct Reports — who need to manage performance and workplace issues in matrix teams

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course and does not require previous HR qualifications, employment-law study or experience of formal employee-relations cases. Participants should already manage, supervise or be preparing to manage at least one employee, and should be familiar with their organisation’s basic policies on absence, conduct, performance, leave and confidentiality where these are available. They should be able to use Microsoft Word and Excel for simple documents and records. A complete beginner can attend; they should expect to practise core manager processes rather than receive legal-advice training.

Training methodology

The five-day programme combines facilitator-led explanation of HR process with manager-level application. Participants analyse policy extracts, attendance records, performance evidence and anonymised case files; then decide what action is appropriate, what must be documented and when HR should be consulted. Role plays cover return-to-work, performance, conduct and grievance conversations, with structured peer and facilitator feedback. Small groups test decisions against fairness, consistency and confidentiality criteria. On the final day, each participant converts learning into a 90-day action plan and a usable manager documentation toolkit.

Course outline

Day 1: The Line Manager’s HR Compliance Role

• Line-manager accountability versus HR advisory responsibility
• Employment-policy hierarchy and local procedure mapping
• Fairness, consistency and procedural reasonableness tests
• Protected characteristics and discrimination-risk recognition
• Confidentiality, need-to-know access and employee data handling
• Manager decision logs and contemporaneous case-note standards
• Escalation thresholds for HR, occupational health and legal advice

Workshop: Participants analyse a set of manager actions against policy, equality and confidentiality criteria and produce a case triage and escalation map.

Day 2: Performance, Probation and Feedback

• SMART objectives and role-based performance standards
• Evidence collection from work outputs, behaviour and stakeholder feedback
• SBI feedback model for specific developmental conversations
• GROW coaching model for capability improvement
• Probation review checkpoints and confirmation decisions
• Informal performance improvement plans and review milestones
• Factual performance-review notes and agreed action records

Workshop: Participants conduct a simulated underperformance meeting and produce a documented performance improvement plan with review dates.

Day 3: Conduct, Grievances and Workplace Concerns

• Informal resolution versus formal disciplinary process selection
• ACAS Code of Practice principles for disciplinary and grievance handling
• Fact-finding boundaries and preserving evidence
• Allegation wording, meeting preparation and employee representation
• Grievance receipt, neutrality and conflict-of-interest checks
• Bullying, harassment and retaliation risk indicators
• Outcome letters, appeal routes and secure case-file management

Workshop: Participants work through a conduct-and-grievance case file and produce a defensible process recommendation, investigation questions and meeting plan.

Day 4: Absence, Wellbeing and Reasonable Adjustments

• Short-term absence patterns and attendance trigger analysis
• Return-to-work meeting structure and factual questioning
• Long-term absence management and occupational-health referral points
• Sickness absence confidentiality and health-data handling
• Reasonable-adjustment assessment and consultation steps
• Mental health conversations and non-diagnostic manager support
• Attendance review records, review periods and escalation decisions

Workshop: Participants review an attendance dashboard and employee scenario to produce a return-to-work plan, adjustment questions and escalation recommendation.

Day 5: Consistent Decisions and Team Application

• HR case triage checklist for recurring manager issues
• Comparing precedent, consistency and individual circumstances
• Manager communication plans for sensitive team changes
• Audit-ready meeting notes, emails and action trackers
• Microsoft Word templates for performance and case documentation
• Microsoft Excel trackers for attendance and action follow-up
• Ninety-day people-management compliance action planning

Workshop: Participants complete a capstone case simulation and produce a 90-day action plan, manager toolkit and documented recommendation for their own workplace context.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Teams, ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures

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