Employee & staff representative training

The UK’s leading independent provider of employee representative training, building stronger, more effective teams for over 20 years.

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Strengthen relationships, improve trust and create positive change

Effective employee representation can help strengthen the relationship between management and employees, improve levels of trust in an organisation, minimise rumours and misunderstandings, improve planning and decision making, and ultimately improve organisational performance.

Our employee and staff representatives’ training provides reps with an overview of their role and builds their skills so they can be effective in what they do. Often, new reps want to understand the framework they operate in, and existing reps want to learn how to work more effectively as a group and influence management. Sometimes, very experienced reps want training in employment law or supporting colleagues in disciplinary hearings.

We can support in any situation, including coaching for employee forum chairs.

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In-person
Live-online
Blended
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Choose from a range of topics...

We have outlined our typical course agendas below, but we can create and deliver bespoke training for your employee representatives or provide specific coaching for chairs of employee representative forums to ensure success in the role.

Effective staff representation is our most popular course. Unless you have specific requirements (i.e. understanding of TUPE), this is likely to be the most appropriate agenda for your reps. It raises awareness of the expectations that representatives’ colleagues may have of them, the benefits of consultation and the personal qualities required to be able to maximise the effectiveness of the role.

Select a topic below for more information

Effective staff representation

This is an example agenda, we can extend certain topics, add in new topics or remove anything listed below which is not applicable.

Staff Consultation

  • The role of consultative bodies and staff representation.
  • Icebreaker and introduction.

The benefits of consultation for both employer and employee

  • What does the company gain from staff consultation?
  • What do employees gain from staff consultation?
  • What can Staff Representatives themselves gain from being part of a Staff Forum?

What makes a good Representative?

  • Looking at personal qualities, skills, experience and knowledge.
  • Support for staff representatives.

Essential Skills of a Staff Representative

  • Giving & receiving constructive feedback.
  • How often do we give feedback to colleagues and managers?
  • What inhibits us from giving feedback.
  • Developing and practising the skills.
  • Working well as an effective team

Active listening and effective questioning skills

  • The importance of having and using listening skills.
  • Developing and practising listening skills.
  • The art of effective questioning.
  • Developing and practising questioning skills.

(Self) Presentation skills for meetings

  • How do you come across to others?
  • Identifying what aspects of your self presentation may hold you back.
  • Adjusting your self presentation to achieve your goals.
  • Developing and practising self presentation skills.

The representative’s role during formal disciplinary and grievance meetings

  • Understanding your organisations disciplinary and grievance procedures.
  • Taking a look at the role of the person accompanying a colleague in a hearing.
  • Accompanying colleagues at disciplinary and grievance hearings.
  • How to prepare for disciplinary hearings.
  • Case studies and exercises to raise your confidence and consider your role.

Effective staff representation: redundancy consultation

Half-day or full-day training. If required, sessions can be split into 2 x 3-hour sessions or 3 x 2-hour sessions. Content can be combined with TUPE, where representatives need knowledge in both situations. View full agenda.

Introduction

  • Why did you become a representative?
  • What does it mean to be a representative?
  • What challenges may you face being an employee representative?

Consultation during Redundancy Consultation

  • The legal framework & Terms of reference
  • What is consultation?
  • Collective redundancy consultation
  • Expectations of you as an employee representative?
  • What does the Company expect of you?
  • What do your colleagues expect of you?
  • How can you be an effective representative?

The Benefits of effective Consultation for Both Employer and Employee

  • What does the Company gain from effective employee engagement during a period of consultation?
  • What do employees gain from employee consultation?
  • What can employee representatives themselves gain from being part of the group?
  • What might prevent the organisation from achieving maximum benefit?

What makes an effective Employee Rep and Effective Consultation Body?

  • Effective communication:
    • Listening skills
    • Questioning skills
    • Giving constructive feedback
  • Working as a team.
  • Organising yourselves.
  • Dealing with disagreements.
  • Managing Change.
  • Understanding the change curve.

The Employee Representative’s role in employee consultation

  • What can you realistically achieve in your role as an Employee Representative?
  • Line management responsibility.
  • Your impact and influence as a rep.
  • Rules of the group:
    • Understanding the terms of reference
    • Collective issues
    • Review the process for agenda setting
    • Confidentiality
    • Personal interests and conflicts
    • Meeting etiquette
    • Off the record discussions
  • Gathering and presenting employee views.
  • Giving employees feedback after meetings.
  • Developing and practising the skills.

Effective staff representation: TUPE

Half-day (3-hour) or full-day course (6-hour). Shorter sessions available for existing reps. View full agenda

Understanding TUPE

  • An overview of the TUPE Regulations
  • What does TUPE mean for staff?
  • Understanding the Organisation’s position

The Representatives’ role during TUPE

  • What is consultation?
  • Taking a look at the role of the Staff Representative during TUPE consultation
  • How should the process be managed?
  • The Representative’s role in formal meetings.

Essential soft skills for Representatives

  • Support for Representatives.
  • Gathering and presenting staff views.
  • Improving your active listening and effective questioning skills.
  • Understanding the change curve.
  • Self-presentation skills: understanding how you come across to others.

Effective staff representation: Law

Half day (3-hours) recommended.

This content can be mixed with content from our other employee reps courses.

Introduction to Employment Law

  • An introduction to employees’ Statutory Rights
  • Rights of the employer
  • The difference between contractual and procedural policies
  • What do the clauses in a contract of employment mean?

Discipline & Grievance Procedures 

  • Understanding your Company’s disciplinary and grievance procedures
  • Understanding employees’ rights
  • Taking a look at the role of the person accompanying a colleague in a hearing
  • Accompanying colleagues at disciplinary and grievance hearings
  • How to prepare for disciplinary hearings
  • Case studies and exercises to raise your confidence and consider your role

The Equality Act 2010

  • Discrimination, bullying and harassment at work
  • Your role in helping to eliminate discrimination, bullying and harassment at work
  • Your role in supporting employees who raise concerns

Effective staff representation: engagement

Delivered as a half-day or full-day session (agenda shown below is for a full-day). Designed to build on existing knowledge rather than introducing the role and responsibilities. If representatives are new to the role, but you’re interested in increasing engagement, we can tailor the content to your specific needs. View full agenda.

Introduction to employee engagement

  • What employee engagement means in practice
  • Why engagement matters
  • The forum’s role in supporting employee engagement
  • Building credibility and effectiveness

Understanding what drives engagement

  • What makes a high-performing team?
  • How teams (and organisations) come together
  • Understanding employee motivation
  • Recognising the signs of disengagement
  • How communication styles can impact engagement
  • Creating a culture of respect
  • Accountability and engagement

Realistically, what can representatives do?

  • Understanding influence, responsibility and boundaries
  • What representatives can realistically change
  • The link between contentment and engagement
  • Moving beyond reactive problem solving
  • Developing great listening skills
  • Key skills and behaviours to influence engagement
  • How energy in the workplace impacts engagement

Developing an engagement focus

  • Exploring real engagement challenges
  • Identifying opportunities to strengthen engagement
  • Agreeing actions and priorities

Effective staff representation

Training to bring a representative group together and develop key skills and knowledge. Suitable as both an introduction (new reps) and as a refresher (existing reps).

Effective staff representation: redundancy consultation

Ensure your representatives understand their role during redundancy consultation and develop the necessary key skills to support.

Effective staff representation: TUPE

Ensure your representatives understand their role in a TUPE situation and develop the necessary skills to support.

Effective staff representation: Law

Develop key employment law knowledge, including supporting with diversity, grievances and disciplinaries.

Effective staff representation: Engagement

Training for representative forums and committees looking to play a greater role in supporting employee engagement across the organisation

Why choose Jaluch?

Jaluch is a leading provider of employee and staff representative training in the UK, with nearly 30 years’ experience in this highly specialised area. We really focus on training reps to have adult, constructive conversations, helping to minimise conflict and increase understanding.

Across the years, we have delivered staff reps training for hundreds of organisations and deliver refresher courses in organisations when new reps are appointed or existing reps need a knowledge refresher. From tea bags to whisky production, hotels, car manufacture, call centres,  banks and care homes … Jaluch has trained employee representatives of every shape, size, age and nationality in every conceivable organisation!

Inclusive and accessible

Ensuring all learning styles are catered for to provide an equal opportunity for learning for everyone.

Interactive and engaging

Our style of delivery is always lively and engaging with maximum interaction and minimum lecture.

Impactful and memorable

Highly relevant material and methods of delivery that are designed inspire so learning is truly embedded.

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If you want to provide your employee representatives with training that has impact and that builds skills and confidence, then you have come to the right place. Ask us for testimonials from both reps and those organising staff representative training.

As a starting point alongside the training, our book No More Gimmicks by Helen Jamieson offers a practical perspective on what really drives engagement at work, helping reps understand what makes a difference.

To book one of our staff representative training courses, or ask us any questions, send us a message and one of the team will get back to you. We’re here to help and we’d love to hear from you!

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At a glance

  • Engaging, interactive training, facilitated by experienced, professional trainers.
  • Face-to-face, live-online, digital, or blended learning.
  • Choose from 2-hour to 6-hour workshops. 
  • Digital learning pre-course option.
  • Custom content available to meet your exact requirements.
  • Digital pre-course assessment.

Who should attend?

We have a range of options suitable for new or existing employee representatives in need of a refresher. Specialist courses (e.g. TUPE, redundancy and engagement forums) are available for reps who need knowledge in a specific area.

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