TSP Learning delivers topical and bespoke training and we are pleased to offer your organisation half-day or full-day HR / Employment In-House training courses for your managers and/or directors. Each course has been designed to keep employers up to date with relevant laws affecting businesses, the practical application of these laws and how to ensure best practice in the workplace.

Who Should Consider This?

The importance of keeping staff trained cannot be underestimated.

Any business that delegates management of staff to managers or supervisors needs to ensure that those managers are equipped to discharge their duties. If not, management might not be effective or efficient on the one hand, creating commercial risks or, on the other, is at risk of being unlawful or illegal, creating potential liabilities for the company, its directors and even the managers personally.

If your business employs staff or engages workers, you will find that the courses provided by TSP Learning will be relevant to you.

The Benefits

The TSP in-house training courses will benefit both your managers and your organisation as follows:

The Benefits for Your Managers

Those attending TSP Learning In-House training will benefit personally by:

  • Developing knowledge of best practices
  • Learning how to reduce risks
  • Having greater confidence to resolve issues
  • Avoiding potential areas for conflict
  • Becoming more mindful of relevant behaviours
  • Recognising potentially serious legal issues
  • Learn to focus management time more efficiently
  • Identifying where management time needs to be focused more efficiently
  • Keeping up-to-date with relevant legal changes

The Benefits for Your Business

Your business will benefit too by:

  • Providing a potential defence to some civil claims
  • Demonstrating a commitment to the continual professional development of your staff
  • Improving Managers (etc.) skills thus minimising the risk of errors and disputes the working environment for a better employee experience and enhanced employee engagement
  • Improving the working environment for a better employee experience and enhanced employee engagement
  • Reducing poor and risky behaviour

A Unique Optional Benefit

In addition to the numerous advantages that TSP in-house training will bring, detailed above, you organisation will also have access to a unique optional benefit – the TSP Employment Law Helpline service.

The Employment Law Helpline service will be available to your organisation for one month following delivery of the in-house training course. TSP will not charge your organisation for access to the Employment Law Helpline service for this period.

The Employment Law Helpline service is designed to support and help you manage day-to-day employment issues. Please click here for further information and also see The Legal Bit… below.

What’s Available?

The Employment Law team have put together a suite of courses for you to choose from. Remember though, if you cannot find the topic you require we will be pleased to discuss and agree a bespoke course with you.  Contact Jolyon Berry by emailing jolyon.berry@tsplegal.com or calling 01206 217 012.

Courses Available

The half day modules currently available are:

Essential Skills for Managers

Please contact Jolyon on 01206 217034 if you would like information about this course

Equal Opportunities and Unconscious Bias

Training your Managers in this key area of Employment Law will help to demonstrate that your company is doing all that is reasonably within its power to eliminate poor (risky) behaviour, thus affording it a defence to any allegation that the employer is liable for the acts of its employees which might be in breach of the Equality Act 2010.

  • To remind your Managers of the importance of being an Equal Opportunities Employer
  • To empower your Managers to “call out” breaches of internal policies and to lead by example
  • To highlight the impact of Unconscious Bias in the workplace and help your Managers with strategies to minimise such practices
  • To help your business to continue to be a good place to work.

The aims of the training, detailed above, will be achieved with the following course outline:

  • What do “Equal Opportunities” mean? A discussion to consider:
    • Discrimination and protected characteristics under the Equality Act
    • The reasons for having an Equal Opportunities policy and the advantages of providing Equal Opportunities
  • Addressing the consequences and impact of failing to provide Equal Opportunities. Delegates will consider how Employers may be failing to provide Equal Opportunities. Discussions will cover:
    • The impact of Discrimination claims, including the effect and motivation of the workforce
    • The legal and cost implications of Employment Tribunal claims
  • What is Unconscious Bias? By identifying examples of bias in the media and their day to day lives delegates will consider how the media has played a role in creating an unconscious bias among the workforce. For example:
    • Adrian Lester, a British actor of Jamaican heritage was quoted as saying he had learned “To turn down lucrative work in TV series such as The Bill because they always wanted him to play the mugger”
    • The role the historical genre “Idiot Comedy” has in portraying people with learning difficulties. The genre is traced to Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and Harold Lloyd, through to the 70s with BBC series such as Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, right up to Dumb and Dumber (1994) and Kingpin (1996)
  • Delegates will explore the long term effect of this bias and the problems associated with such examples, even where such films and attitudes may not be as apparent today
  • The impact Unconscious Bias has on the workplace and remedies to avoid it. Public sector and larger companies are required to publish figures relating to salary and the gender pay gap, this has revealed large inequalities in pay, but other such gaps exist in terms of race and even “class”. Delegates will consider and explore relevant skills and practices both for themselves and for employees which can be used to ensure that acts of unconscious bias do not become engrained
    • This section will form a large part of the training, as it is an area that has become an increasingly more prominent issue in the workplace
  • Identifying problem areas:
    • Delegates will consider how Employers can look beyond individual behaviours and tackle structures that enhance or seek to justify acts of unconscious bias. This session will include an examination of business structures and practices that might encourage the inclusion and progression of all individuals. Delegates will prepare a list of tips for best practice and highlight examples or areas within your business that could be developed or improved upon to remove the unconscious bias barrier

Download this course outline here

Investigations, Active Listening, and Interview Techniques

The aims of this training are

  • To reconfirm when an investigation is required
  • Look at the use of suspensions
  • To introduce to your Managers the importance of being able to carry out an investigation the outcome of which can, on the one hand, be relied upon when managing staff and, on the other, stand up to legal scrutiny
  • To highlight the difficulties of and identify barriers to effective, “active listening” and explore techniques to improve the power of effective communication
  • To remind your Managers of the risks inherent in the interview part of the recruitment process
  • To help your business to continue to be a good place to work

The issues discussed and techniques considered in this training are transferable into other areas of work and ordinary life. For example by improving an individual’s investigatory, listening and interview techniques, they necessarily become a better negotiator. By implementing the guidance offered in this training, your organisation will reduce commercial risk, improve the efficiency of procedures, which will be more robust to legal challenge, and you will be more confident that your Managers will arrive at the correct conclusions when faced with an HR problem.

The aims of the training, detailed above, will be achieved with the following course outline:

Investigations:

  • When are they required? Your Managers will examine the ACAS Code of Practice vis-à-vis disciplinary and grievances
  • Case study: “The difficult conversation” a look at a real case in which the quality of an investigation had a huge huge impact on what happened next
  • What are the rights of the investigator and the investigatee? Delegates will consider what “reasonable” means in the context of the parties’ rights to privacy, the right to be accompanied etc.
  • How to present the conclusions of an investigation… and consider what happens next?

Active Listening:

  • Demonstration: A short exercise to demonstrate how difficult effective listening can be
  • Tips and Techniques: to help individuals improve the efficiency of “Q&A” by looking at open and closed questioning techniques and “cross examination”

Interview Technique:

  • To remind Managers of the risks inherent in the interview part of the recruitment process and a review of the rules on discrimination and Data Protection in the context of recruitment interviews to ensure your managers and your business are not exposed unnecessarily to legal risks
  • Considering the many ways in which interviews can be held
  • Preparing for an interview to improve the chance of selecting the best candidate: delegates will consider the aims of the business and explore different interview techniques

The course outline can be downloaded here

 

Employment Law Updates

Please contact Jolyon on 01206 217034 if you would like information about this course

Tackling Poor Performance

Please contact Jolyon on 01206 217034 if you would like information about this course

Course outlines are available for each of the above and can be found by clicking on the course you are interested in.

Additionally there are a number of 90 minutes sessions that Employers can choose from to make up either a half-day (2 x 90 Minutes) or full-day (2 x half-day or 4 x 90 minutes) as follows:

  • Employment imperatives and staff necessities
  • Holiday pay and working time rights
  • Discrimination law
  • What to expect as a witness in an Employment Tribunal
  • TUPE
  • Managing SAR, grievances and whistleblowing
  • ET None: Avoiding litigation
  • Case Study: A behind the scenes look at a real Employment Tribunal case

If you can’t find what you require from our suite of courses, please be in touch with your usual contact at Thompson Smith and Puxon or with Director, Jolyon Berry, to discuss and agree a bespoke course which can be a modified version of any of the subjects covered above or a completely new subject.

You can download the In-House Training brochure which includes full information here.

The Cost

The standard cost of a half-day session is £1,250 plus VAT. A 10% discount will be applied when three courses are purchased together (£1,125 plus VAT per course). If a 4th course is purchased the standard course price is discounted further to 15% off (£1,062.50 plus VAT per course) for that and each course thereafter provided they are all booked within a rolling calendar year. If you require a bespoke course we will discuss the cost of the course with you.

Terms and Conditions

When purchasing training from TSP Learning you will not be engaged as a client of Thompson Smith and Puxon for legal services. TSP Learning is governed by separate Terms and Conditions.

However, when accessing the unique optional benefit, referred to above, your organisation will need to be engaged as a client of Thompson Smith and Puxon and full client Terms and Conditions will apply.

TSP Learning Terms and Conditions

When purchasing Training from TSP Learning you will not be engaged as a client of Thompson Smith and Puxon for legal services. The agreement between us for the provision of all TSP Learning training by our staff is governed by separate Terms and Conditions together with our Privacy Policy. The agreement will be binding, and between Thompson Smith and Puxon of Stable 6, Stable Road, Colchester, Essex CO2 7GL (“TSP”) and you, your business or your employer as appropriate (“you”)

Payment: Full payment for all Training must be received before the Training date, unless expressly agreed with TSP otherwise. Training is either provided at a fixed cost or on a “per delegate” basis. Payment can only be made by BACs or faster payment.

Cancellations (Online Seminars); You may cancel your booking by confirming it in writing not less than 7 days before the online event, and receive a full refund of fees paid. Where cancellation is made less than 7 days before the event you will receive a 50% refund. Online seminars do not come with any additional benefits.

Cancellations (HR Academy); You may cancel your booking by confirming it in writing not less than 7 days before the first session, and receive a full refund of fees paid. Where cancellation is made less than 7 days before the first session you will receive a 50% refund. You will not be able to benefit from the Employment Law Helpline service in either instance.  If you withdraw from the HR Academy after the first session, you will retain the benefit of the Employment Law Helpline service on the condition that you had signed and returned the terms prior to the HR Academy commencing.

Cancellations / postponements (In-House Training); You may cancel your booking by confirming it in writing not less than 14 days before the training is due to take place, and receive a full refund of fees paid. Where cancellation is made less than 14 days before the first session you will receive a 50% refund. You will not be able to benefit from the Employment Law Helpline service in either instance.  You may postpone the training up to 7 days before it is due to be delivered on the condition that it can be rearranged to take place within 3 months of the original date, otherwise it will be cancelled.

Discounts: Any discounts given for TSP Training are discretionary, and offered on a non-transferrable basis. We reserve the right to withdraw a discount at any time.

Unforeseen circumstances: Training may be cancelled or postponed by TSP if the person delivering the Training is unexpectedly or unavoidably unable, and if a substitute trainer cannot reasonably be provided. You will receive a full refund for any Training cancelled by TSP, or when an alternative date can’t be found within 4 months of the original Training date in the event of postponement.
If the Training is due to be held at TSP’s offices or at a venue booked by TSP, the venue may be changed at our discretion.

Miscellaneous: TSP has the right not to accept a booking. Any personal data provided by you can be processed by TSP in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Unique Optional Benefit: The Legal Bit...

Only subscribers of the TSP HR Academy or the HR / Employment In-House Training will have access to and can choose to utilise the unique optional benefit. Delegates of our one hour online Employment seminars do not have access to this benefit.

If the service you are purchasing gives you access to this unique optional benefit, then, in order to utilise the benefit, your organisation must be engaged as a client of Thompson Smith and Puxon and full client Terms & Conditions (Ts&Cs) will apply and will be provided at the point of engagement.

The Employment Law Helpline service will end automatically at the relevant date.

The Employment Law Helpline service is not available as a stand-alone service, but forms part of the wider TSP Employment Retainer product “Supporting Your HR Function”.

Once your access to the unique optional benefit is complete TSP will be in touch to discuss whether you wish to consider purchasing the “Supporting Your HR Function” service.

You and your organisation can only take advantage of the unique optional benefit once. It cannot be utilised on multiple occasions.