Industrial Relations and Personnel Management Course

Why Select this Training Course?

The most valuable asset of an organisation is its personnel. The success and growth of any organisation depends on the effective functioning of them. The Rcademy Industrial Relations and Personnel Management Course will introduce you to relevant and best industrial relations and personnel management practices. The course covers the skills needed to build and maintain employment relationships, how trade unions and industrial institutions function, and how they interact to encourage capacity building.

The course will provide participants with vital and current information on trade unions’ functions, objectives and structures. It also explores how to create transformational industrial and employee relations and encourage good working relationships with every industry stakeholder.

What are Industrial Relations and the Systems that Support Them?

To understand the meaning of industrial relations, it is important to consider the meaning of both terms. Industrial refers to production processes in which employees engage, while relations in this context refer to the relationship between employers, management and their employees. The industrial relations system seeks to provide an amicable working relationship between employers and employees while ensuring continuous productivity and effectiveness.

The system serves as a regulatory framework for settling industrial workplace conflicts, paying rates, and advising on disciplinary policies and working conditions. Some systems that support industrial relations include labour laws, trade or employee unions, and industrial awards. They guide personnel in the workplace by assisting in maintaining satisfactory employment.

What are the Types of Personnel Management?

Personnel management is an integral aspect of the human resource framework, including recruiting, training and supporting staff. Many companies adopt employment policies that support and encourage their employees, which benefits both the company and the employees by boosting job satisfaction and productivity. It encompasses every facet of administration focused on preserving relationships between workers and their organisations, such as company policies, employee contracts, collective bargaining agreements, and transactional duties.

The following are the three aspects of personnel management:

1. Strategic personnel management
2. Tactical personnel management
3. Operational personnel management

Who Should Attend?

This course is suitable for professionals within the industrial relations and human resource management industries. The following individuals should partake in the course:

• Corporate Affairs Managers responsible for organising governance processes, coordinating internal policies, and managing a company’s external communications.
• Labour relations officers responsible for representing the grievances of workers, negotiating agreements, and implementing them.
• Human Resource Managers responsible for hiring, training, and supervising employees and developing strategies to boost efficiency and productivity.
• Business owners responsible for building a healthy and efficient workplace environment.
• Public Relations Practitioners who are charged with engaging the public on behalf of an organisation.
• External Relations Managers in charge of developing and executing an organisation’s external relations policies.
• Operations Manager tasked with developing and executing strategies to boost efficiency and productivity.
• Every other person interested in learning about industrial relations and personnel management.

What are the Course Objectives?

This Rcademy Industrial Relations and Personnel Management Course aims to assist participants in attaining the following objectives:

• Build a collaborative approach to industrial relations and personnel management
• Understand the basics of personnel management and its relationship with human resource management
• Appreciate the value of employee empowerment and engagement
• Understand how to evaluate workplace mediation and conflict resolution critically
• Recognise the skills necessary to function in today’s industrial relations environment and how to overcome related challenges
• Evaluate the techniques for promoting and transforming industrial relations, trade unionism and personnel management
• Understand the nexus between industrial relations and human resource management
• Learn how to design, execute, and evaluate an effective personnel management programme
• Understand how to relate the role of employee relations to the roles of supervisors, managers and team leaders

How Will This Course Be Presented?

This training course is participant-based and specially curated to meet their expectations while growing their skills and knowledge. Different techniques and approaches that ensure active learning by participants will be employed to deliver the training. The course will be delivered by experts in the field with years of practice and experience. The modules are designed from extensive and in-depth research on the subject.

The Rcademy Industrial Relations and Personnel Management Course provides theoretical and practical learning by providing lecture notes, slides on the subject, real-life scenarios, and lecture notes. Participants will partake in presentations, quizzes, seminar workshops, and constant feedback on the lessons taught to gauge their satisfaction.

What are the Topics Covered in this Course?

Module 1: Industrial Relations, Employee Relations, and Personnel Management

• Conceptualising industrial and employee relations
• Overview of trade unionism and industrial relations
• The relevance of trade unions
• The changing employment relationship and psychological contract
• Emerging global trends in industrial relations and personnel management
• Tools of personnel engagement

Module 2: Development and Training Strategies

• The value of training personnel
• Investing in personal development
• Rolling out opportunities for individuals
• Emphasising soft skills
• Running regular mentoring and coaching sessions

Module 3: Negotiation Skills for Industrial Harmony

• The stages of negotiation
• Overview of reframing techniques
• The Coleman Raider “bare-bones” model
• A win-win approach to negotiation
• Exploring cooperation and competition

Module 4: Performance and Rewards

• The importance of rewards in the workplace
• Acknowledging achievements
• Determining performance parameters
• Conducting regular rewards and recognition meets

Module 5: Personnel Management in Practice

• Team briefing
• Consultations
• Communications
• Discipline for gross misconduct
• Handling sickness absence
• Discipline for poor performance
• Appeals

Module 6: Labour Market Analysis

• Labour market institutions
• Key principles of economics for industrial relations
• Economic aspects of wage negotiation
• Minimum wage and productivity
• Productivity as a factor

Module 7: Labour Administration and Industrial Relations

• Labour inspection
• Private workplace compliance initiatives
  • The case of BetterWorks
• Employment protection legislation
• Non-standard forms of employment
• Industrial relations, labour and the economy
• Transition from informal to formal economy

Module 8: Managing Personnel Performance and Engagement

• Workplace psychological safety
• Motivation and the Goal Theory
• Job enrichment
• Coaching and giving feedback
• Self-managed work team
• Formal and informal consultation programmes
• The performance management process
• Informal participative decision-making programmes
• Employee assistance programme

Module 9: Emerging Concerns in Industrial Relations I

• Management’s right to manage
• Recession-proof tech
• Optimising AI in the recruitment process
• Infusing AI with employee relations
• Hybrid work model and visibility problem
• GenZ work-life culture and productivity
• Redefining employee experience

Module 10: Emerging Concerns in Industrial Relations II

• Retention and labour turnover
• Balancing fluidity with role definition
• Diversity and inclusion
• Balancing performance criticism and workplace bullying
• Workplace romantic relationship management

Module 11: The Tools of Engagement

• The power of empathy
• Principles and rules of industrial and human resource management engagement
• Personal action planning
• Understanding transformational leadership
• The value of stakeholder engagement