Public Sector HR Management and Compliance Training Course

Course overview

Public-sector HR teams operate under obligations that are more visible, more scrutinised and often less forgiving than those in commercial organisations. Workforce decisions must satisfy employment law, public-service values, equality duties, collective agreements, civil-service or local-government rules, records requirements and budget controls—while remaining defensible to employees, unions, auditors, elected officials and the public. This course helps HR professionals turn those obligations into practical, consistent people-management processes rather than relying on informal judgement or policy documents that are not applied reliably.

Participants examine the full public-sector employment lifecycle: workforce planning, recruitment and selection, job evaluation, pay governance, employee relations, absence, performance, discipline, grievance, restructuring and exit. They learn to build compliant decision records; test policies against equality and procedural-fairness principles; manage consultation; use HR data to identify risk; and prepare evidence for internal audit, investigations and external scrutiny. The programme also addresses governance roles, delegated authority, confidentiality, data protection and the controls required when managers make employment decisions.

Delivery combines instructor-led briefings with realistic cases involving contested recruitment, sickness absence, misconduct, pay anomalies and organisational change. Participants work with policy review checklists, decision logs, risk registers, consultation plans, case-management templates and workforce dashboards in Microsoft Excel and Power BI. Each participant leaves with a tailored Public Sector HR Compliance Action Plan, including priority control gaps, proposed policy amendments, ownership, evidence requirements and a 90-day implementation schedule they can use with their HR director or senior leadership team.

The course is designed for experienced HR practitioners, HR business partners and public-sector managers who already handle people issues and now need stronger governance, assurance and defensibility in complex cases.

Course objectives

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

• Map public-sector HR obligations across employment law, sector rules, collective agreements and internal delegations of authority
• Build an auditable recruitment and selection file using objective criteria, scoring records and equality checks
• Apply procedural-fairness principles to disciplinary, grievance, capability and absence-management cases
• Create a workforce compliance risk register with controls, owners, evidence sources and review dates
• Evaluate HR policies against equality duties, data-protection requirements and operational consistency
• Prepare consultation plans and decision records for restructuring, redeployment and workforce-change proposals
• Analyse workforce indicators in Microsoft Excel and Power BI to identify absence, turnover, pay and equality risks
• Produce a 90-day Public Sector HR Compliance Action Plan for strengthening local HR controls

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HR Managers — who own people policies, case governance and assurance across public-service teams
• HR Business Partners — who advise senior managers on complex employment decisions and organisational change
• Employee Relations Managers — who manage disputes, union engagement, discipline and grievance processes
• Public-Sector Line Managers — who make recruitment, performance, absence and conduct decisions under delegated authority
• Workforce Planning and People Analytics Specialists — who need to convert workforce data into compliance and governance insight
• Internal Audit and Compliance Officers — who review HR controls, decision evidence and people-related risk

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience of HR operations, employee relations, people management or public-sector governance. The course assumes familiarity with core HR terms such as contracts of employment, recruitment, performance management, absence, grievance, disciplinary action and workforce metrics. Participants should be able to work with basic spreadsheets, including filters, simple formulas and tables; advanced Excel or Power BI expertise is not required. No legal qualification, CIPD membership, specialist HR information system or prior audit training is required. Complete beginners to HR should first gain grounding in the employment lifecycle before attending.

Training methodology

The instructor uses short technical briefings to establish the governance principles behind each HR process, then moves participants into public-sector case work. Teams review anonymised recruitment files, policy extracts, disciplinary evidence, absence data and restructuring proposals; identify control failures; and prepare defensible recommendations. Hands-on sessions use Excel and Power BI templates to build risk indicators and management reporting. Facilitated peer review tests whether each decision can withstand employee challenge, union scrutiny or audit. The final workshop converts learning into a prioritised 90-day compliance action plan for the participant’s own organisation.

Course outline

Day 1: Public-sector HR governance and accountability

• Public-sector employment governance: legislation, sector rules and internal policy hierarchy
• Roles of HR, line managers, senior leaders, unions, audit and oversight bodies
• Delegations of authority and escalation routes for employment decisions
• Public-service values, procedural fairness and defensible decision-making
• HR compliance risk registers and control design
• Records retention, confidentiality and employee-data handling
• ISO 37301 compliance management principles applied to HR operations

Workshop: Participants map their organisation’s HR governance chain and produce a draft compliance risk register for three priority people processes.

Day 2: Fair recruitment, workforce planning and pay controls

• Workforce planning assumptions, establishment control and approved-post governance
• Job analysis, job descriptions and person specifications using objective criteria
• Structured shortlisting and interview scoring matrices
• Equality checks in advertising, selection methods and appointment decisions
• Conflict-of-interest declarations and panel governance
• Job evaluation, pay progression and exception approval controls
• Recruitment file audit checklist and evidence standards

Workshop: Participants audit a flawed recruitment campaign and produce a corrected selection record, risk log and approval pathway.

Day 3: Employee relations, case management and workplace fairness

• Triage of conduct, capability, grievance, dignity-at-work and whistleblowing concerns
• Investigation planning: allegations, terms of reference, evidence and witness management
• Procedural-fairness tests for disciplinary and grievance hearings
• Absence management triggers, occupational-health referrals and reasonable-adjustment records
• Performance improvement plans with measurable review points
• Union consultation and representation in employee-relations cases
• Case chronology, decision rationale and appeal-ready documentation

Workshop: Working from a misconduct and sickness-absence scenario, participants produce an investigation plan, case chronology and manager decision brief.

Day 4: Workforce data, equality assurance and HR reporting

• HR data definitions, data quality checks and minimum viable data sets
• Excel pivot tables and trend analysis for absence, turnover and vacancy data
• Power BI dashboard design for workforce compliance indicators
• Equality monitoring and adverse-impact analysis in recruitment and progression
• Pay-gap, overtime and contingent-workforce risk indicators
• ISO 30414 human capital reporting measures and disclosure considerations
• Management reports that distinguish operational issues from control failures

Workshop: Participants use a workforce dataset to build a compliance dashboard and present three evidence-based risk findings to a mock leadership panel.

Day 5: Change, assurance and implementation planning

• HR due diligence for restructures, redeployment and service redesign
• Consultation planning, stakeholder mapping and communication controls
• Equality impact assessment for workforce-change proposals
• Redundancy, redeployment and selection-process governance
• HR policy review methodology and version-control discipline
• Internal audit testing of HR controls and evidence sampling
• Ninety-day compliance improvement roadmaps and assurance reporting

Workshop: Participants complete a tailored Public Sector HR Compliance Action Plan with control priorities, owners, evidence requirements and a 90-day implementation schedule.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, ISO 37301 Compliance Management Systems, ISO 30414 Human Capital Reporting

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