This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Almost every employee relations case was avoidable six months earlier. By the time it has a name, the cheap options are gone.

How a situation becomes a case

Someone's work slips. The manager notices and says nothing, because the conversation is unpleasant and the quarter is busy. Three months later the slip is a pattern, the team has noticed, and now the conversation is not a correction but an accusation. Then comes an improvement plan written by someone who has already decided the outcome, and a resignation whose real reason nobody ever learns. I have been the manager who waited, and the delay was never about the other person.

What this course actually covers

Six blocks arranged as an escalation ladder. First, the system everything happens inside: the performance agreement, evidence, assessment of results and competencies, the review and the decisions that follow it. Second, the everyday conversation — why managers avoid feedback, the four specific things that block it, and a six-step model for saying it in the moment. Third, motivation: the twelve engagement factors, and why incentives stopped working. Fourth, the rung where things break between people — how conflict escalates, how to prevent the predictable ones, and how to mediate. Fifth, the rung where performance breaks: telling a skill gap from a will gap from a system gap, building an improvement plan that actually improves performance, and running the three conversations it requires. Sixth, the rung where it ends: an exit interview with thirty-eight structured questions, and what to do with the answers.

A note on the last two blocks

They come from two playbooks rather than lecture courses, which means they arrive with documents: a readiness checklist, an improvement plan template, conversation scripts with actual wording, a goals library, a thirty-eight question exit questionnaire, analytics dashboards and responsibility matrices. If you are building the process rather than handling a single case, that is the part you will use most.

Who is teaching this

I am Mike. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all 32 lessons

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Working material: the six-step feedback model, the conflict resolution algorithm, the improvement plan template and scripts, the goals library, the exit questionnaire and analytics dashboard

• Real cases from Google, Netflix and HubSpot

Where to start

Think of the person whose performance or behaviour you have been meaning to address. Write down the date you first noticed. That number, not the conversation itself, is the thing this course is trying to reduce. Enrol now and start today.