Guides

These guides provide hr practitioners, supervisors and managers, inexperienced and experienced, with down-to-earth advice, strategies and real life examples of how to deal with people issues from the run of the mill to the unusual. They will also direct you to other resources that might be of assistance.

Why are the guides valuable? Hindsight and practice - we have 'been there, done that' with lots of situations and for those that we haven't, we have got advice from those more experienced.

As a new hr practitioner and then later as a manager, I often knew what the theory was about the issue and how my university lecturer, training facilitator or the government guidelines said to deal with the issue but it didn't necessarily translate into what to do with real people. People do not react like the case studies in textbooks.

Interacting and managing people successfully is a skill learned through practice, trial and error, in an environment or series of environments over a period of time that allows you to experience a vast array of people related events. And even then, many people, with years of experience still struggle.

In the very early part of my career I was exposed to some excellent principles and practices but, some of my most valuable lessons were learnt through error, mistakes or seeing how other people more senior stuffed a situation. Nothing like a very cranky union official, a crying employee or an irate manager yelling at you to learn how not to do something.

So, enough about me, let's talk about you. These guides will be helpful if you are:

• New to people management and need some practical assistance.
• Working in an environment where you do not have a decent role model (you are not alone, it is more common than you might think).
• An experienced people manager but haven't encountered a particular situation before, and probably no-one else in your organisation has either.
• Working in a regional or isolated location and do not have a network of peers or managers to share experiences with.

We are going to continue to add to our collection. We welcome feedback about whether you gained value from the guides so after you have read them, please send an e-mail. Also, if there is a particular topic you would like covered, drop us a line.