employee relations | workplace investigations | grievance handling | misconduct | discipline | PIP | conflict mediation
What You Will Learn:
- Tell a conflict that needs mediation from one that needs a formal process
- Run a mediation between two people who both believe they are right
- Recognise the conditions that produce misconduct, using the fraud triangle
- Spot a conflict of interest before it becomes a case
- Ask behavioural questions with STAR and document answers defensibly
- Handle a discrimination or harassment complaint without making it worse
- Write a performance improvement plan with seven mandatory elements
- Know what to do when an employee refuses to sign
- Run an exit interview that produces usable data, not polite noise
- Learn alongside Mike’s 1.6 million students from 185 countries
Overview: Beyond the Corporate Handbook
Look, I’ve spent over a decade in the tech trenches, and if there’s one thing that kills a scaling startup faster than bad code or a missed Series B, it’s a toxic internal culture that doesn’t know how to police itself. Most HR training feels like a HR director reading a compliance manual in a monotone voice. This course, Workplace Grievances, Misconduct & Discipline for HR, is different. It’s taught by Mike, who clearly understands that employee relations is less about filing papers and more about high-stakes conflict resolution and risk management.
What I appreciated most was the shift from theoretical fluff to job-ready skills. In the tech world, we love to “move fast and break things,” but when you break people or violate labor laws, the litigation costs are astronomical. This course treats workplace investigations as a rigorous process rather than a “gut feeling” exercise. It bridges the gap between beginner to advanced concepts by showing you how to maintain the human element while building a defensible legal paper trail. It’s an essential deep dive for anyone who wants to move past entry-level admin work and into a strategic People Ops or HR Business Partner (HRBP) role where you’re actually protecting the company’s bottom line.
Prerequisites: What You Need Before You Start
You don’t need a JD or a decade of human resources experience to get value here, but you do need a stomach for uncomfortable conversations. While the course is billed as accessible, I’d suggest having a baseline understanding of your local labor regulations (like at-will employment vs. contract laws). If you’re looking for certification prep for the SHRM or PHR, this is excellent supplemental material. Most importantly, you need a high level of emotional intelligence (EQ); if you can’t stay objective when two engineers are screaming about a “toxic” pull request, no amount of training will save you.
Skills & Tools: The Modern HR Tech Stack
This isn’t just about learning “how to fire people.” It’s about performance management and conflict mediation using industry-standard tools. You’ll dive into:
- The Fraud Triangle: A brilliant framework for diagnosing why misconduct happens (Pressure, Opportunity, Rationalization). This is a game-changer for misconduct audits.
- The STAR Technique: While often used for hiring, Mike shows you how to use it for behavioural questions during a grievance handling investigation to pin down facts, not feelings.
- Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs): We’ve all seen bad PIPs. This course breaks down the seven mandatory elements to ensure they are real-world projects for growth, not just “pre-firing” notices.
- Conflict Mediation Frameworks: Learning how to facilitate a conversation where both parties think they’re the hero of the story.
Career Benefits & Job Roles: Leveling Up
If you want to see career growth in the current market, you have to be more than a “culture advocate.” You need to be a fixer. This course prepares you for high-impact roles like Employee Relations Specialist, Internal Investigator, or Director of People & Culture.
In the tech sector, having these hands-on labs—metaphorically speaking—under your belt makes you indispensable during layoffs or restructuring. It turns you into the person the CEO trusts to handle a discrimination or harassment complaint without it ending up on the front page of TechCrunch. It’s about moving from a cost-center role to a value-protection role.
Pros: Why This Course Hits Different
- Zero Fluff: Mike gets straight to the point. He knows you’re busy, and he delivers job-ready skills that you can apply in a 1:1 meeting the very next day.
- Defensible Documentation: The focus on how to write reports that stand up in court is worth the price of admission alone. In a litigious world, this is your armor.
- Massive Social Proof: Joining a community of 1.6 million students gives the content a level of industry-standard credibility that smaller, niche courses lack.
Cons: The Honest Truth
The only real drawback is that the course is very “Mike-centric.” While his 1.6 million student reach is impressive, the hands-on labs are largely self-directed. If you’re the type of learner who needs a live instructor to role-play a discipline meeting with you, the pre-recorded format might feel a bit isolating during the more complex conflict mediation modules. It requires a lot of self-discipline to actually practice the STAR method rather than just nodding along to the video.