Fair process, clear roles
Absence, discipline, grievance and team charters.
Around four hours on fair process and clear roles: absence and capability, performance, conduct and discipline, grievances and bullying, and team purpose, charters and composition.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 4 hours
- Where
- Managing well
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Managers and team leaders responsible for people in councils, the voluntary sector, health and housing
Overview
How a manager handles absence, discipline and grievance shapes trust across a whole team. This Focus from the Immerse Stepping up starts with health, absence and capability: reading a fit note as advice, making reasonable adjustments and planning a return to work that lasts. It then distinguishes capability from conduct through the illustrative case of Gareth, before working through discipline under the Acas Code, including the Burchell test, Iceland Frozen Foods versus Jones and proportionality, and resolving grievances, bullying and conflict at the lowest safe level. It ends with team purpose and charters, using Gene Kranz and Apollo 13, and roles and size, from Belbin to Lau and Murnighan's faultlines.
Aims
Its purpose is to equip managers to run a fair process from first concern to outcome, protecting both the individual and the team, and to set their team up with a shared purpose and clear roles so that fewer issues reach formal stages at all.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Plan a return to work that lasts, treating a fit note as advice and identifying reasonable adjustments that fit the role and the person.
- Distinguish capability from conduct and apply the Acas Code, the Burchell test and proportionality to reach fair, defensible outcomes.
- Design a team charter and role mix that build shared purpose, drawing on Apollo 13, Belbin's team roles and the risk of faultlines.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Explain how Statutory Sick Pay and fit notes work since April 2026 and use a fit note to open a planning conversation.
- Distinguish capability from conduct and explain why naming the reason first determines the right procedure.
- Plan a fair disciplinary process in line with the Acas Code, from investigation and the right to be accompanied through to decision and appeal.
- Plan the handling of a grievance in line with the Acas Code, from early listening to a reasoned decision and appeal.
- Explain Hackman's compelling direction and why it should specify ends rather than means.
- Describe Belbin's nine team roles and explain why they suit conversation rather than selection.
- Apply the duty to make reasonable adjustments to absence linked to disability, including adjusting trigger points before formal action.
- Plan a fair performance procedure, from informal conversation to formal stages, that puts support before sanction.
Built from 3 parts.
4 hours of learning.
- 01When health and performance dipSickness absence, capability and performanceBitesize · People Management and Employment Law2 modules
- 02Handling it fairlyAcas Code: discipline, grievances and bullyingBitesize · People Management and Employment Law2 modules
- 03Clear purpose, right peopleTeam charters, goals, roles and compositionBitesize · Team Development2 modules