Employment Relations in Practice.
ER in Practice is an immersive nine-month development program for experienced HR business partners and HR managers ready to take their employment relations practice to the next level.
Modern Employment Relations demands More.
Technical knowledge matters. But great HR practitioners need more than legislation, policies and processes. They need to understand the business, navigate complexity, influence decision-makers and exercise sound judgement when there isn’t a neat answer.
ER in Practice is an immersive nine-month development program for experienced HR business partners and HR managers ready to take their employment relations practice to the next level.
Grounded in real-world ER, the program combines technical depth with the broader capabilities modern HR demands, such as commercial acumen, influence and negotiation, critical thinking, organisational and systems thinking, and the effective use of AI.
Through experiential workshops, workplace application, live coaching and an integrated capstone, participants don’t just learn new concepts. They practise them.
Because knowing ER and being great at practising it are two very different things.
Key Learning Outcomes
- Understand how to navigate complex employment relations matters.
- Develop capability across investigations, performance and conduct, industrial instruments and entitlements, employment frameworks, psychosocial risk, separation, claims and disputes.
- Exercise professional judgement to challenge assumptions, recognise bias, and make considered decisions.
- Understand the operational and financial consequences of people decisions.
- Communicate complex advice simply, navigate competing interests, negotiate effectively and confidently challenge leaders when required.
- Look beyond the presenting issue to consider leadership, culture, capability, structure, systems, process and work design.
Course Overview
March – November 2027 | Perth + Online
The complete ER in Practice experience includes:
- 9 full-day face-to-face intensives.
- 9 two-hour online ‘In the Wild’ group coaching sessions.
- Pre-session preparation
- Post-session workplace application.
- An integrated workplace capstone.
- Practical tools, frameworks and resources.
- Guest presenters and specialist practitioners.
- A small, connected peer cohort.
Applications open: November 2026
Enrolments close: February 2027
Program commences: March 2027
Cohort: Up to 16 participants
Ready to put Employment Relations into practice?
Who It’s For:
ER in Practice is designed for HR Business Partners and HR Managers with foundational Employment Relations capability who are ready to become more confident, commercially aware and effective practitioners.
It’s particularly suited to HR professionals who:
- Regularly advise managers and leaders on people and ER matters.
- Have experience managing straightforward ER matters and want greater confidence with complexity.
- Are expected to operate as business partners, not simply provide process or policy advice.
- Want to strengthen their commercial thinking, influence and professional judgement.
- Want to better connect individual workplace issues with broader organisational challenges.
The program is designed to support the shift from foundational to proficient ER practice. It isn’t an introduction to HR, nor is it advanced specialist training for experienced ER practitioners.
What You’ll Develop:
By the end of ER in Practice, participants will be better equipped to:
Navigate complexity
Work out what’s really going on, test the evidence, assess the risk and recommend a defensible way forward.
Build technical depth
Develop capability across investigations, performance and conduct, industrial instruments and entitlements, employment frameworks, psychosocial risk, separation, claims and disputes.
Exercise professional judgement
Challenge assumptions, recognise bias and make considered decisions when there isn’t a clear answer.
Think commercially
Understand the operational and financial consequences of people decisions, assess cost and risk, and articulate the value of different approaches.
Influence + challenge
Communicate complex advice simply, navigate competing interests, negotiate effectively and confidently challenge leaders when required.
Think organisationally
Look beyond the presenting issue to consider leadership, culture, capability, structure, systems, process and work design.
Work intelligently with AI
Use AI to research and draft faster, while knowing what it can’t do for you: protect confidentiality, weigh evidence or make the call.
Learning by Doing
ER in Practice is built around one principle:
Capability develops through practice.
Prepare
Purposeful pre-work introduces key concepts, cases and questions before each intensive, allowing valuable face-to-face time to focus on application.
Practise
Nine full-day face-to-face sessions working through complex scenarios, casework, simulations, role-plays, discussions, and practical problem-solving.
Apply
Post-session work deliberately transfers learning back into the workplace, providing participants with structured opportunities to apply new approaches to realworld situations.
In the Wild
Between intensives, participants come together online for ‘In the Wild’. This two-hour facilitated group coaching session focuses on the live issues participants are managing at work, enabling them to test their thinking with the group and get coaching on next steps.
Learn it. Practise it. Apply it. Bring it back. Go again.
The Capstone
Across the program, you’ll work on a real people or organisational challenge in your own workplace. Each module adds to it: diagnosing the issue, understanding its commercial and organisational context, gathering evidence and designing an intervention.
The capstone develops across the program through pre- and post-work, face-to-face learning and ‘In the Wild’ coaching before being finalised in the last intensive.
Participants don’t leave with only new knowledge. They leave having applied that knowledge to something that matters to their organisation.
ER in Practice is led by experienced Employment Relations and People & Culture practitioners.
Register your interest in the inaugural ER in Practice cohort.
The Learning Journey
1. Navigating Complex ER Matters
Diagnosing what’s really happening, challenging assumptions, assessing risk and exercising judgement.
2. Workplace Investigations
3. Performance & Conduct
4. Industrial Instruments & Entitlements
5. Employment Frameworks & Contracts
Interpreting awards, agreements and employment entitlements and translating complexity into practical business advice.
6. Psychosocial Risk & Respectful Workplaces
7. Employment Separation & Organisational Change
Managing termination, redundancy, and restructuring while balancing legal, commercial, and human considerations.
8. Claims, Disputes & Complex ER Strategy
Navigating matters where legal, industrial, commercial, reputational and people considerations pull in different directions.
9. Integration & Capstone
Presenting your capstone, bringing technical depth, commercial thinking and human judgement together.
ER expertise. Broader practice.
ER in Practice is led by experienced Employment Relations and People & Culture practitioners.
Employment Relations Lead + Facilitator
Warren brings deep Employment Relations expertise and leads the technical backbone of the program, helping participants build the confidence, judgement and practical capability to navigate increasingly complex workplace matters.
Facilitator
Kassy brings extensive senior People & Culture experience and a practical organisational lens across leadership, culture, organisational performance and business partnering.
Plus, guest practitioners
Participants will learn from a range of guest presenters with diverse industry and technical backgrounds, bringing specialist expertise, diverse organisational perspectives, and real-world experience to the program.
Join the inaugural cohort
ER in Practice is deliberately small and application-based, creating the space for genuine discussion, practice, challenge and peer learning.
Applications are reviewed to ensure participants have the appropriate existing experience and that the program is the right fit for their development.