
In this lecture you build the Impact and Pattern Map, place one real situation into one of its four squares, and get the move that square asks for, including what to write down and when to bring in help.
This course is built from six disciplines: performance management, feedback, motivation, conflict management, improvement plans and exit interviews.
The map of the course
A dictionary for reading lectures from other fields as employee relations work
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Impact and Pattern Map and fill in one line after each lecture.
Why an organisation needs the process at all
What sits with managers and what sits with the function
The modern approaches
Linking the process to strategy rather than to the calendar
What a performance agreement contains
The role profile behind it
Cascading objectives to an individual
Identifying required skills and behaviours, and the development plan
A model for giving feedback, and what makes it effective
Regular one-to-ones as the main instrument
Difficult conversations, and diagnosing a drop in performance
Coaching and delegation as part of managing it
What can be automated and what should not be
The tools available
A worked example of an automated process
Where AI genuinely helps here
Assessment based on responsibilities and on objectives
Assessment based on indicators
Assessment against standards and critical incidents
Assessment derived from job analysis
Building a competency profile or model
Organising a 180-degree assessment
Organising a 360-degree assessment
Competency interviews, and running an assessment centre
The questionnaire template and the question bank
Linking goals, feedback and the review into one process
The template for a good review conversation
The manager's own self-check afterwards
Salary review and bonus decisions
The promotion decision, and revising responsibilities
Inclusion in the talent pool, and the development plan
Improvement plans, and dismissal
Why so many managers avoid it entirely
Why we get it everywhere in life except from the people who matter most
Why there should be more of it, and why people want it
The manager's role, and the effect on performance
Lack of support from around you
The false beliefs that do most of the damage
Excessive stress in the moment
Lack of skill, and how to change each of the four
Why the two are not the same thing
Why feedback matters more than assessment
Six steps for saying it in the moment
Preparing a script, and asking for feedback on yourself
Feedback inside a leadership team
The barriers that block it upward
Applying the six-step model
Running it across a whole organisation
Adjusting for different personality types
Giving feedback on someone's feedback
The questions people ask most often about this
Getting better at it by practising deliberately
What a recognition practice is for
Monetary and non-monetary options
Peer recognition, using Google as the example
Where recognition turns into a hollow ritual
What a person's motives actually are
The reasons people work, beyond the obvious one
How motivation is measured in an organisation
How motivation translates into output
A different way of looking at effectiveness
Where the link breaks, which is usually before anyone notices
How everyday culture operates on motivation
What gets in the way of it structurally
How Google and Netflix approach this
Building a culture where a problem surfaces early
The link between employee loyalty and customer loyalty
How loyalty is measured
The factors that raise it
What a self-managed organisation is, and why loyalty runs high in one
What the Gallup research established
The twelve motivating factors
Raising engagement in practice rather than in a survey
Motivation 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0
Routine work against work that requires judgement
Why carrot and stick stopped working
The three elements that replaced it
The components of a conflict
Why conflict is intrinsic to people rather than a failure
The psychology underneath it
The causes that come up again and again
How a conflict starts
The escalation ladder, and where you can still step off it
The algorithm for resolving one
The classification, and why it changes your approach
Why conflicts arise inside organisations specifically
How a manager should react when in the middle of one
Preventing the ones that are predictable
Badly organised work as a source of conflict
Personal problems arriving at work
Straightforward work disagreements
Favouritism and political conflict
Working with both sides early
Assessing the likelihood of conflict with a test
Assessing a team for it
The rules that reliably reduce it
The options available for resolution
Negotiating your way out
Mediation, and when to bring someone in
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.