HR Essentials for Line Managers
A two-day programme for managers who never asked to do HR work but carry it anyway. Line managers make the decisions that create most of an employer's legal exposure: who gets hired, who gets confirmed after probation, who gets warned, whose medical certificate is questioned, and who is let go. This programme gives them enough working knowledge to make those calls correctly, and to recognise the point where HR or legal has to take over.
Programme Agenda
Where a Manager's HR Authority Starts and Ends
What you can decide alone, what needs HR sign-off, and what needs a formal process before anyone acts. Mapping the everyday decisions that carry legal consequence, so they stop being made casually in a corridor.
Employment Act 1955 Essentials for Managers
The provisions managers actually touch: working hours, rest days, overtime rates, annual and sick leave entitlement, and the 2022 amendments covering flexible working arrangement requests, 98 days maternity leave and 7 days paternity leave. Enough to spot a problem before it becomes a claim.
Hiring and Onboarding Without Creating Liability
Writing a job description that can be assessed against, interviewing lawfully, avoiding questions that invite a discrimination argument, and setting probation terms that mean something. Confirming or extending probation on documented evidence rather than instinct.
Performance Conversations That Hold Up Later
Setting expectations in writing, giving feedback that actually changes behaviour, and recording the conversation the same day. Building the paper trail that makes a later decision defensible instead of reconstructing it under pressure months afterwards.
Handling Misconduct and Poor Performance
Why the two are legally different and why treating one as the other is a common and expensive mistake. Verbal warnings, written warnings, show cause letters, and the threshold at which a domestic inquiry becomes necessary.
Leave, Absence and Medical Certificates
Managing genuine and questionable medical certificates, unauthorised absence, prolonged illness, and requests for unpaid or emergency leave. What a manager can reasonably ask for, and what asking too much exposes the company to.
Resignations, Exits and the Handover
Notice periods and payment in lieu, withdrawal of a resignation, forced resignation risk, exit interviews, and the documentation that closes an employment file cleanly.
Manager Clinic: Your Own Cases
Participants bring real situations from their own departments. The group works through each one against the framework from the day, with a facilitated view on where the risk actually sits.
Learning Outcomes:
Tell the difference between a decision you can make and one that needs HR or legal involvement
Apply the Employment Act provisions that affect day-to-day people decisions
Interview and confirm probation on evidence you can defend
Run and document a performance conversation that supports a later decision
Handle misconduct and poor performance through the correct route for each
Manage leave, absence and medical certificate disputes proportionately
Close an exit cleanly, with the paperwork a dispute would ask for
Duration: 2 Days (16 Hours)
Training Hours: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Level: Beginner
Training Mode: Physical, Online, or Hybrid
HRD Corp SBL-KHAS Claimable
Certificate of Completion included