The goal is improvement, not a record. That means being specific about the gap, separating the work from the person, agreeing what changes, and setting a genuine review point — not delivering a verdict and leaving.
I.
Employee relations
Difficult conversations training for the ones people avoid.
The cost of an avoided conversation is almost never visible at the time. It shows up eighteen months later as a resignation, a grievance, or a claim built on the fact that nobody ever told the employee there was a problem. Managers avoid these conversations because they have never been taught how to have them and are frightened of making things worse. Both are fixable.
What's on this page
- What the training has to cover — the four conversations, and how each one differs.
- Where it goes wrong — the failures that show up repeatedly.
- What you should be able to produce — the records that make the decision defensible.
- The course — what it includes and what it costs.
II.
II.What it has to cover
Four conversations, four different jobs.
These are routinely lumped together as 'difficult conversations'. They are not the same skill, and conflating them is why managers handle them badly.
Different from performance and must be handled differently. Conduct is about a standard that was breached rather than a capability that fell short, and the process, tone, and consequences all follow from that distinction.
The hardest to do well, because the manager is often personally implicated. The skill is listening without defending, capturing the complaint accurately, resisting the urge to resolve it on the spot, and knowing when it must be escalated.
Where a manager mediates rather than decides. Requires separating positions from interests, and recognising the point at which an interpersonal conflict has become a conduct issue that can no longer be mediated.
III.
III.Where it goes wrong
How these conversations actually go wrong.
Rarely because a manager was harsh. Usually because they were vague, late, or trying too hard to be kind.
- The message was softened until it disappeared
- Wrapping criticism in so much reassurance that the employee leaves believing they are doing fine is the most common failure of all. If the person cannot state afterwards what needs to change, the conversation did not happen.
- The first formal conversation was the first conversation
- An employee whose first indication of a problem is a formal meeting has a legitimate grievance about process, whatever the merits. Concerns raised early and informally are what make later formal steps fair.
- Feedback was saved for the annual review
- Performance concerns raised months after the events are hard to evidence, harder to remedy, and read as retrospective justification for a decision already taken.
- The manager defended themselves during a grievance
- Where the complaint touches the manager's own conduct, arguing the point in the meeting contaminates the process. The task is to capture the complaint accurately and hand it to someone who can look at it impartially.
- Nothing was written down because it 'went well'
- Conversations that go well are exactly the ones worth recording — they evidence that the employee was told, understood, and agreed a way forward. Only recording the ones that go badly makes the file look punitive.
IV.
IV.What you should be able to produce
What to write after the conversation.
Short, factual, same day. The aim is a note a stranger could read in two years and understand exactly what was said.
The specific concern, with examples
Dated, observable instances rather than characterisations. 'Missed three deadlines in March, dates below' rather than 'has an attitude problem'.
What the employee said in response
Including any explanation, mitigation, or disagreement. A note that records only the manager's side reads as a case being built.
What was agreed, and by when
The specific change, the support offered, and the review date. Vague agreements produce vague outcomes and cannot be assessed later.
Whether it was raised or escalated
If anything in the conversation touched health, discrimination, or safety, the note records that it was passed on and to whom.
V.
V.The course
Employee Relations & Difficult Conversations
Scripted and practised rather than described. Each conversation type is worked through with the opening line, the likely pushback, and the note that follows. Includes conversation record templates and a grievance intake form.
$99 · SINGLE COURSE · TEMPLATES INCLUDED · 12 MONTHS' ACCESS