Unconscious bias is a term that describes the associations that are outside of our control. It is triggered by our mind automatically making assumptions about someone based on their visible characteristics, background, and even their voice. This course explains how we can overcome our unconscious biases to improve decision making and professional relationships leading to open, inclusive and effective organisations. Unconscious bias can influence key decisions in the workplace and can contribute to inequality in, for example, recruitment, appraisals and promotions. This course takes a straightforward look at one of the most important issues in diversity management.
Who should attend?
This course is suitable for managers with any recruitment and performance management responsibility. The course can also be adapted to enable the whole team to uncover their unconscious bias.
Course Content
Module 1 -
What do we mean by 'unconscious bias'?
Module 2 -
How to recognise natural biases that affect manage and employees in the workplace
Module 3 -
Creating a positive approach to difference
Module 4 -
Harnessing the benefits of diversity for positive organisational value
Module 5 -
Practical tips to uncover personal bias and manage inappropriate attitudes
| Benefits to the Business | Benefits to the Delegate |
| Ensures colleagues are accountable for their behaviour | Identify possible bias in yourself and how to manage it |
| Enhances recruitment, appraisal and promotion practices | Understand how stereotyping can operate outside of your conscious awareness |
| Encourages an analytical and reflective management team | Feel confident to challenge unconscious bias with colleagues and employees |
| Implement practical strategies to deal with subtle unconscious bias in the workplace | Appreciation for the benefits of a diverse team |
To find out more about this course or to book on, just get in touch.
Wellbeing Strategy Development
We know that employers have a fundamental duty of care for the health, safety and welfare of their employees. Covid has brought employee wellbeing into much sharper focus and with moves at Government level to legislate for Mental Health First Aiders in every organisation, a formal wellbeing strategy should be a adopted by all employers.
Not only will employers reap the rewards of a motivated and engaged workforce, an integrated approach to wellbeing will promote longer term organisational success.
HR Champions can support you business in developing their own employee wellbeing strategy through training and policy implementation that will ultimately engender a wellbeing culture that makes yours, a good company to work for.
Wellbeing Strategy Plan:
- Starting from the top, ensure senior leaders and managers understand the gravity of workplace health and wellbeing, and take the matter seriously.
- Train line managers and supervisors in good management skills ensuring targets, workloads and deadlines are manageable and realistic. Instil the importance of regular one-to-one meetings and performance reviews. Give them the skills to hold sensitive and difficult conversations with confidence. Empower them to offer flexibility and adjustments where they identify the need.
- Provide a clear and easy pathway to occupational health support and any other specialist therapies such counselling or mediation.
- Initiate strategies to generate an evidence-based understanding of the causes of poor physical and mental health in the organisation an of any unhealthy practices.
- Encourage an open and honest work environment and one where employees feel safe and able to discuss issues with fear of reprisal.
- Ensure policies and practices are aligned with the organisational and employee needs rather than relying on off-the-shelf quick fix solutions
- Promote a good mental wellbeing ethos and engender a culture where people can talk about mental health and seek help where needed.
An authentic employee health and wellbeing strategy should be a core element of any organisation operation and not simply a tick-box exercise. It should be an ongoing project that forms part of the overall company culture.
Talk to us about how we can support you own Employee Wellbeing Strategy.
Get in touch to find out more.
Employee Wellbeing Surveys
Employee engagement surveys are designed to measure and assess your employees' motivation and engagement. Employee wellbeing surveys invite employees to reflect on their physical and mental health and allow the company to consider the ways in which staff are supported. Once revealed through survey results, underlying issues, which managers may have been previously unaware of, can be addressed head-on. Surveys can be made anonymous to give employees confidence to answer truthfully, and even though individual results may not be revealed, trends in the overall workforce results can provide invaluable insight to influence corporate decision making for the benefit of staff.
Surveys can be conducted at any interval with brief monthly conducted surveys giving a regular check-in for employees that avoids problems being allowed to fester.
How we can help with your staff survey:
- Surveys managed from start to finish
- Greater engagement when surveys are outsourced to a third party
- Anonymity for survey responders
- Collaborative approach to question setting
- Work with you to understand your aims exactly
- Surveys managed online including e-mails
- Detailed, graphical response reports
- Monitor response rates and encourage engagement
- Make recommendations on actions to take following the survey
- Support with action implementation
Costs depends upon our level of involvement and the number of staff surveyed. Please contact us to discuss.
Get in touch to find out more.
Holding Suicide Conversations Training
Suicidal thoughts are much more common than people think. As MP Dean Russel put it, "If suicide was a virus, we would be on the hunt for a vaccine." However, huge stigma remains when talking about suicide. People might not view suicide as a workplace issue however employers have a legal duty of care to provide a safe working environment. The Hazards Campaign estimates that 650 work-related suicides happen every year in the UK. That equates to 10% of all suicides. As an employee, manager or HR professional, it can be an extremely difficult and emotional situation when a colleague discloses suicidal feelings. Our course is designed to build confidence in the team to have supportive conversations and to sensitively signpost to the appropriate services.
This is a 4-hour session to raise awareness of wellbeing and mental health, and for delegates to learn how to recognise and look after their own mental health.
What you’ll learn:
- The case for understanding the link between suicide and the workplace
- Roles, responsibilities and Duty of Care: the employer and the Mental Health First Aider
- The four attitudes towards suicide
- Supportive conversations: having the confidence to listen and signpost a colleague
- Knowing when to escalate and de-escalate
Price:
1/2 day in-house training for up to 12 delegates - £999 (+ VAT)
| Benefits for the Business | Benefits to the Delegate |
| Support the company’s well-being agenda | Build your confidence to listen to a difficult subject and sign post your colleague |
| Contribute to a safe workplace culture with open discussions | Understand different suicide attitudes to feel capable in escalating and de-escalating |
| Recognise the signs early before a serious escalation is required | Know how to take care of your own mental health and well-being |
| Strengthen the skills of your current Mental Health First Aiders by increasing their confidence | Have an appreciation for your company’s escalation procedure |
Get in touch to find out more.
Mental Health Training has been part of our suite of training courses for over eight years now. We made the decision to offer it following the wider acceptance that employers should take greater responsibility for the wellbeing of their employees and should play a more pro-active role in the promotion of good Mental Health as part of this.
Currently, employers are not obliged to provide mental health training for employees, although it has become much more widespread recently and many businesses have taken it upon themselves to implement it; particularly since Covid. Businesses are becoming more alert to that fact that a mentally heathy workforce with good morale is significantly more productive with less days lost to absence.
Optional Mental Health training for employees may soon become a thing of the past however if Dean Russell, Conservative MP for Watford, sees his recently proposed bill made into UK law.
Mr Russell proposed the new law in the House of Commons last Wednesday as a Ten Minute Rule Bill last Wednesday. The purpose of the bill, Mr Russell said is to “…create parity between mental health and physical health in the workplace for first aid.” In other words, employers’ responsibilities regarding the mental health of their employees will become as legislatively enforceable as for their physical health.
During his Bill reading, Mr Russell cited the proliferation of modern technology, social media and an ‘always-on’ culture as reasons why we are experiencing an increase in cases of mental health. He remarked how the rapid changes in culture and society have not been matched by changes in us as human beings, which is creating stress and anxiety.
“If suicide was a virus,” said Mr Russell, “we would be on the hunt for a vaccine. If loneliness was a disease, would we not search for a cure?” He went on to quote several statistics:
- In 2021 in the UK, 6319 deaths were reported as suicide in 2021.
- 10 million more people will need mental health support since Covid.
- Stress depression and anxiety have become the cause of the most lost work days since the 1990s.
- Annually, 1 million workers lose 18.6 days per year to work related stress, depression or anxiety, equating to 17 million days lost in 2021/22.
- According to Deloitte, the cost of mental health to UK business is £56billion.
He went on to say, “Mental health on the business agenda is an investment not a burden. People do not wear bandages to show where they have anxiety and depression. Many learn to hide their pain in fear of damaging their careers.”
This is the second time that Dean Russell has bought the bill to the House and he vowed to continue highlighting it until it gains proper attention. The second reading is scheduled for 24th February.
The general feeling is that it is a case of when rather than if this bill will become law, and it represent the most significant revision of our workplace Health & Safety Laws for some time. Workplaces will have to have somebody trained as a Mental Health First Aider in addition to provisions for employees’ physical health. The Mental health Forst Aider’s role will not be to treat, but to support those with mental health issues and signpost them to the appropriate services.
Clearly, this will see a rise in the demand for Mental Health training and so businesses may want to get ahead of the curve and train their Mental Health First Aiders now whilst there is availability and prices are low. We have a number of courses already scheduled throughout the year.
In addition, we run Mental Health Awareness courses for staff in general and Mental Health for Managers to equip line managers and supervisors with the skills to recognise the potential or occurrence of mental health issues within their own teams.
Take a look at our updated Mental Health & Wellbeing page on our website for further information about the courses we run and other support we offer. As usual you can contact us on 01452 331331, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
You can see the Dean Russell’s Bill reading on the BBC at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001j12r/ten-minute-rule-bill-mental-health-first-aid
Our expert HR consultants have designed this in-depth course to support your managers and business with their day-to-day HR banes. HR can be a tricky field to navigate. Line managers may feel their best option is to immediately escalate issues to HR or senior line managers. However, our course will teach them the fundamental aspects of HR which can support line managers to get the best from employees. It has been designed to help employee management, maintain productivity, and avoid escalation. The course provides knowledge for any manager with people management responsibilities and allows them to deal with everyday people related questions.
Build managers’ confidence in the fundamentals of HR and people management
Who should attend?
This course is suitable for any manager with people management responsibilities. Be confident in the fundamentals of dealing with day-to-day employee related questions.
Course Content
| Day 1 | Day 2 |
| Module 1 - What is Employment Law?: Need to Know Legislation | Module 1 - How to Manage Performance |
| Module 2 - Recruiting to Retain | Module 2 - Difficult Conversations |
| Module 3 - Induction and Probation | Module 3 - Coaching |
| Module 4 - Best Practice when Managing Absence | Module 4 - Overview of Investigations, Disciplinaries and Grievances |
Role play and interactive Sessions
Throughout the training there are role plays, interactive sessions and games to help delegates practise and understand the processes and methods
| Benefits to the Business | Benefits to the Delegate |
| Managers are managing people issues confidently everyday | Be confident and knowledgeable of relevant employment law and legislation |
| Up skill and improve your management team to know best practice in people management | Earn respect from employees through effective managerial behaviour |
| Educated managers can take swift action | Feel competent to tackle situations like managing long term sick and absence |
| Reduce litigation risk by preventing escalation of issues | Skills and knowledge immediately implementable |
To find out more about this course or to book on, just get in touch.
This course is designed to provide delegates with the correct tools to train team members confidently enabling the team to do their job right. It can be a challenge to introduce new procedures and processes in your team especially if the team does not have a good teacher. You can avoid poor return on investment by ensuring your team have a confident and knowledgeable trainer to transfer information. Equip your team with the essential skills to welcome and understand new information as well as respecting their colleague-trainer. A team who train together work better together and ultimately add more organisational value.
Encourage collective learning and development within the team
Who should attend?
This course is suitable for any manager who has responsibility for training colleagues and team members regularly.
Course Content
| Day 1 | Day 2 |
| Module 1 - The role and responsibilities of the trainer | Module 1 - Setting learning objectives |
| Module 2 - How to recognise different learning styles | Module 2 - Keeping the team engaged and motivated |
| Module 3 - Communicating Content | Module 3 - Deliver and receive feedback on a training Session |
| Module 4 - What is the Training Cycle? | Module 4 - Creating an Action Plan |
Role play and interactive Sessions
Throughout the training there are role plays, interactive sessions and games to help delegates practise and understand the processes and methods
| Benefits to the Business | Benefits to the Delegate |
| Teach colleagues skills to do their job right first time | Be confident in creating and leading training sessions with colleagues |
| Ensure smooth introduction of new ideas and skills to the team | Understand how to motivate the team to learn |
| Get buy in from the team on new processes with help from your influencers | Recognise and respond to different learning styles |
| Creates a baseline standard of knowledge for the team | Receive realtime feedback and know how to improve teaching style |
To find out more about this course or to book on, just get in touch.
Coaching employees to improve their performance is not a simple task. Whether it be training or performance management, the managers in your business need to know how to get the best out of employees. These coaches will be able to ask fewer but better quality questions as well as adapting to their colleagues’ communication style, needs and skills. The rise of ‘quiet quitting’ has shone a light on the importance of ensuring a high level of motivation in the team. This course will allow your employees to maximise their own performance as well as the performance of the wider team by identifying needs and asking the right questions.
Maximise your team's performance with innovative solutions
Who should attend?
This course is suitable for people managers who have a responsibility for performance management and development of their team.
We also run an ILM accredited Level 3 Effective Coaching Award.
Course Content
Module 1
What is Coaching and How does it Help?
Module 2
When and How should you use Coaching?
Module 3
Questioning Techniques: Ask Fewer but Better Questions
Module 4
Learning Styles and Identifying Needs: How to Recognise and Respond to them
Module 5
Coaching Practice with Feedback
Role play and interactive Sessions
Throughout the training there are role plays, interactive sessions and games to help delegates practise and understand the processes and methods
| Benefits to the Business | Benefits to the Delegate |
| Build morale in the team with highly motivated team members | Build confidence in asking the right questions - know what to say |
| Create an engaged team who take responsibility for own development | Understand what to say to get the best out of the team |
| Implement ‘can-do’ attitudes across different departments | Recognise different learning styles and understand how to adapt |
| Prevent staff misunderstandings from hindering productivity | Skills and knowledge immediately implementable |
To find out more about this course or to book on, just get in touch.
Immediately following the Covid pandemic we saw a trend whereby many employees of a certain age elected to quit their jobs and remove themselves from the available workforce. The stresses of the pandemic, including the loss of loved ones, brought about a re-evaluation of life goals. Opportunities to retire early were eagerly taken.
More recently, the cost of living crisis has forced some of these early retirees to re-join the workforce, and compelled others to recognise that they will probably have to stay in work for longer than they may have originally planned. Despite this, the number of vacancies in the UK remains high. Indeed, just this morning, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt strongly hinted at financial incentives to encourage people to re-join the workforce.
In the meantime, we have noticed that employers have diluted their recruitment standards in order to fill posts.
One consequence of the current labour market is that the age range amongst workers in some organisations has broadened, and we can sometimes see as many as five generations in a single workplace.
Whilst we promote and applaud diversity in the workplace, managing a workforce that spans a wide age range and encompasses differing sets of principles and beliefs, can present a number of challenges. Attitudes towards authority, work ethic and privacy can become catalysts for friction. For example, something that was acceptable to say in the workplace 40 years ago that might have been considered simply as banter back then, would not be appropriate today and may indeed be considered offensive.
In recent years, terms such as Baby Boomers, Millennials and Generations X and Z have entered the lexicon. The media and some HR commentators have been quick to adopt these phrases as a way of pigeon-holing individuals into certain behavioural types, dependant solely on the years of their birth.
We are less keen to employ such labels.
They do not take into account people’s life choices; when they start a family for example. Nor do they account for education or affluence. Wealthier individuals are proven to have had better and earlier access to technology and therefor the Internet; one of the prime markers for identifying Generation Z. There is also no overlap. The generation labels are strictly aligned with specific years of birth, whereas in reality there are likely to be transitional periods.
Furthermore, using such generational terminology creates a pathway for derogatory and ultimately discriminatory terms. “Boomer” has become a word of disrespect, criticizing someone’s age and perceived lack of digital awareness.
Generational diversity then, deserves as much attention as race or gender diversity. Furthermore, in addition to awareness surrounding age discrimination, managers need to employ plain and comprehensive communications practices to ensure that all employees are receiving the same messages and instructions and that no group or individual feels isolated or treated differently.
Diversity of all kinds is good for businesses so it's important that employers embrace generational diversity whilst maintaining their employees’ dignity at work and safeguarding their wellbeing.
Ask us about our Dignity at Work training, as well as our Effective Communication workshop. Contact us on 01452 331331, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
There seems to be little let-up at the moment in the amount of industrial action taking place across the nation and across a raft of industries. While some of us may have occasionally been inconvenienced by the likes of Frech Air-Traffic Controllers upsetting our holiday plans, strikes on the current scale haven’t been seen for quite a few years in the UK. For many, this will be their first encounter with such industrial action, on both sides of the picket line.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said 13% of businesses reported some kind of impact from industrial action toward the end of 2022. Common issues include being unable to access goods or services which they needed, for example because of postal strikes.
Businesses are also being affected as their employees struggle to get to their place of work, either owing to transport strikes or because they are forced to stay at home on childcare duty because teachers have walked out. Whilst some business types, such as hospitality and manufacturing, have little room for manoeuvre, a little creativity from others may help to alleviate the impact of the strike action.
The debate over the pros and cons of working from home rages on, but when transport strikes mean your staff are denied the ability to get to work, allowing them to work from home, where that is a practical solution, is an obvious solution. Indeed, the advent of working from home and other flexible options since the Covid pandemic is probably lessening the impact that some strikes are having; reducing the value of strikes as a bargaining chip for unions.
Where staff are unable to make it into the workplace, and home working isn’t an option, reverting to holiday will probably be the default position for most. Unpaid leave could also be a consideration where not enough holiday allowance remains. We are usually forewarned when strike days are going to happen which makes planning ahead a little easier, although that may be of little comfort to employers who depend on a certain headcount being present in the workplace.
Initiating a car-sharing scheme could be something to consider to help employees get to work; with perhaps some flexibility in start-times built in to allow for busier than usual roads or deviations from the driver’s usual route to collect colleagues. For those affected by teacher’s strikes and therefore presented with childcare challenges, setting up an emergency creche is probably unrealistic. Flexibility with start and finish times however may be sufficient to enable staff time to drop off children with a family member or friend.
Industrial action by paramedics. Nurses and associated workers such as call handlers, is something that nobody want to be affected by. It’s certainly something that we are unlikely to plan for. Some extra precautions around the workplace however might be prudent.
If there was a firefighter’s strike, we might be inclined to prepare ready access to water and ensure fire extinguishers were serviced and in working condition. With emergency health workers walking out, maybe now is a good time to check that your first aid kits are fully stocked and that you know the location of the nearest defibrillator. Also ensure there is someone on hand who knows how to use it and when is appropriate to do so. Generally, make sure that you have sufficient numbers of First Aiders available for each shift.
At the moment, widespread public support for those workers electing to strike appears to remain intact. How long it continues however before people begin to lose their patience is anybody’s guess.
We’re here to support with all aspects of HR, Employment Law and employee wellbeing. Call us to discus on 01452 331331 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.